How To Find Out The Age of Electric Bike? (Solved)

Welcome To Electric Bike Tricks 

Knowing the age of your electric bike can be very important to you whether you are planning to buy a used ebike or sell it.

If you are the buyer, you must know the age of the ebike to determine the general condition of the bike.

For example, if the bike is two or three years old, but its condition is bad, it will help you to know whether the seller wants to sell it at a reasonable price or not.

But if you are the seller, you may need to know the age of the bike to set a suitable price for it according to market prices and the condition.

In this post, I will show you how to know your bike’s age and some useful tricks that you should take into account when buying a used electric bike.

First, you must know that there is a difference between the normal life of an electric bike and the actual age.

Normal Age is the age of the bike from the date of manufacture to the date you will buy the bike

Actual Age is the age of each part of the bike, whether it is the motor, battery, frame, or even the age of the suspension system.

How To Find Out The Age Electric Bike?

 1.Check & Translate the SN

The first step in determining the age of the bike is to determine its serial number.

Once you have the serial number. You can check it on the official website.

This method will show you the date of manufacture, However, the challenge here is to know where the serial number is?

As a general rule you can find the Serial Number of your Ebike On :

• On  the bottom bracket
• The underside of a bottom bracket 
• beneath the bottom bracket
• The head tube

Did you know that you can translate the serial number to determine the model and year of manufacture?!

In many cases, the serial number is not just random numbers, but rather a combination of numbers and letters, and often the letters are the translation for the model of bike, but the numbers are for the date of manufacture and model.

You can search for your Model and then search for how the serial number was created.
(This method will be used in very old models)

As for modern ebikes, you can search with the serial number on the official website, which will often give you additional information such as the date of manufacturing.

2.Use Google Image Search Feature

If you do not know the serial number of the electric bike for any reason, whether you cannot find it or because it is lost (some companies put the serial number on a sticker)

One of the easiest ways that may help you is to use the Google image search feature.

When you upload the image of your ebike, Google will show you all similar images with some information about them.

By this, you can find your model and then search for the year of manufacture of this model.

3.Ask Experts

One of the most effective ways is to ask experts in the field, whether by publishing a post on Facebook pages or Twitter with a picture of your bike, to determine the model, and then you can determine the year of manufacture.

Also, a quick visit to the nearest electric bike shop will help you a lot in determining the age of your bike because these people work on bikes daily and have a lot of information.

(Make sure to have a friend at the ebike shop near you, he will be very helpful!)

How To Find Out The Actual Age Of the Electric Bike?

Let’s agree that the previously mentioned methods may be useful if you have an old model of electric bike or maybe the bike was given to you by one of your relatives who no longer uses it.

Then the previous steps will be useful because they will tell you a lot about the bike.

As for what is really important for you, it is to determine the actual age of the bike, and as we mentioned earlier, it is to determine the age of all the important parts of the electric bike, such as the motor, battery, controller and suspension system.

4.Check Ebike Battery.

The battery is a key part of the electric bike and is very important, and you should know how to determine the battery life in order to give you a picture of when to change the battery, the general life, and also the future costs in the event of a change.

There are two ways to check battery life.

Method 1: If the electric bike manufacturer has a bike management program, you will be able to easily know the remaining battery life

Method 2: To determine the amount of fluid inside the battery, and here you should go to the nearest ebike shop they will give you a report for the battery’s remaining lifetime.

Note: If you are going to buy a used electric bike, it is preferable to check fluids, even if there is a program to manage the bike because the battery has a shelf life so maybe the fluid is dry over time while the program gives a different lifetime reading.

Electric Bike Trick: Many bicycle manufacturers have a dedicated device to read the battery, and in most cases, it is very accurate. Be sure to ask the manufacturer about it.

5.Check  Ebike Motor.

Determining the age of the motor of your electric bike needs some focus because the motor is a vital component of the bike.

There are many factors that you must take into account when determining the age of the motor.

First, the mileage: As a general rule, a bike can cover about 10,000 miles during its life, so you can easily read the number of miles traveled on the bike screen to know the true age of your electric bike

Secondly, the motor sounds: If your motorbike makes abnormal sounds or cracking sounds, this indicates a malfunction and also gives you the impression that the life of the motor is almost over.

Third, odors emitted from the motor: If you smell unpleasant odors when running the bike motor, this is also evidence of a major malfunction in the bike, and it severely affects the life of the motor.

6.Check  Ebike Controller.

The electric bike controller is also an important part of the bike, which is the main part responsible for transmitting power from the battery to the motor.

The controller is designed to live long, and you can know the condition of the controller in two ways.

First, look at the general condition of the cables coming out of it, as well as the way the bike responds to changing speed on the road.

Another way is to check it at the electric bike shop to check its general condition.

You can check our manual for how to use ebike controller setting from here

7.Ebike Suspension System Age

Determining the age of your electric bike’s suspension system depends on how you use it.

Therefore, there will be no specific factors or numbers to determine the real-life of your bike, but you can determine the general condition of it by testing it on mountain roads.

If you cannot, you can press the suspension system down and then leave it to feel the extent of the reaction if you see an adverse response For pressure, this often means that your bike’s suspension system is working fine.

But if you see a slow response in the reaction, this is an indication of a weak suspension system.

8.Ebike Frame Condition

An electric bike frame can tell you a lot about the general condition of the bike.

Just a first look at the frame, you can determine the size and method of use for this bike by checking the frame.

Is there rust on it? are there broken parts, scratches, or even warping in the frame?

All this will give you a general idea of the condition of the bike and its real age

 

 

with this being said let’s calculate the actual age of your ebike.

Ebike Age Calculator

As all the manufactures of electric bikes talks in miles then we need to calculate your ebike age with miles, not years & this seems to be logical as the usage is different from person to person

in my calculation I depend on two main factors to calculate the age of ebike which is the battery & Motor

As batteries are always measured by the number of charging cycles we need to know how many miles your ebike can last for every charge. So we can calculate the total number of miles by knowing the standard number of charging times for every type of battery.

Charging cycle numbers

lithium batteries: Up to 1000

nickel batteries: Up to 500

lead batteries: Up 300

 

You can use the below calculator to know how many miles your battery can last per charge then you can multiply this with the standard charging cycle for your battery

For Example:

if your battery was 36v & the amp was 14

where your estimate number per watt-hour per is 20.

the battery can last up to 25 miles per one charge so to convert it into miles I will multiply 25*1000 (number of standard charging cycle)= 25000 Miles

Now we know how many miles my battery can last.

you can check how many miles you ride on your bike so you can know how many miles remaining for you.

Motor Calucation

As the standard of ebike motors are 10000 miles (which is very low comparing to the real experience that in most cases can exceed 30000 Miles )

you can check the miles that your ebike ran from the LCD screen to know how many miles remaining

 

For Example:

If your bike run 5000 miles on average this means that your ebike is on its half of lifetime

however, I would like to mention that doesn’t mean you will not be able to use it after you reach 10000 miles, but it is most probably that you will need to increase the running cost budget for your ebike.

 

Note: the above number can be different based on different elements like

Motor capacity

Motor quality

Controller condition

Conclusion

As a general rule ebike Age can be known by: