I have faced a peculiar issue recently. My 1st gen Ather 450, when connected to the Ather pod (1st gen) started showing Authentication error P002. Customer support tried to remap the pod to the scooter, but did not work. Ather RSA picked up the vehicle and took it to the service center.
After check up, the service advisor called me up and told me the onboard charging system has failed and needs to be replaced. When asked why did the charger failed, they told me that it was due to “Voltage fluctuations”.
My scooter went out of warranty by Feb 2022. Ather is asking me 32000/- plus GST to replace the onboard charger.
Has anyone faced this sort of issue ?
If there are Voltage fluctuations, Ather pod which has auto cut off should have stopped working and should have shown a error. If that has not happened, isn’t it a fault with the charger or the software within ?
Maintenance of vehicle and Charger installations are completely taken care by Ather. Is it possible that the charger installation was not done properly which could have resulted in a failure.
Is the cost of replacement of onboard charger justified ? It is worth 1/3 rd the cost of the vehicle.
ask them to remove the Onboard charger and buy a DOT or portable charger, this will solve every issue it has, Like voltage fluctuation, since they use DC charging
I already have a portable charger for my 450x.
But is it possible to charge 450 with portable charger or Dot after removing onboard charger ?
How will it affect 450 ?
yes, you can charge 450 1st gen with 450x Portable charger, there is no difference, the only downside is it cannot wakeup Dead 450, that means if your scooter goes below 0 per cent and you leave it few days the portable charger will not be able to wakeup the BMS, other than that there is no downside.
PS if it shows an Authentication error, ask Customer care to map it with your 1gen scooter
Got the scooter back today. Was charged Rs. 80 for the consumables. Seal was replaced for free. Bike wasn’t washed when I took delivery. But not complaining, just stating a fact. 4* instead of 5* for this to the BU Bhandari Team.
I have been having conversations with Ather service team for a while now.
Ather service team is adamant on me replacing the onboard charger. They are of the opinion that onboard charger cannot be removed and it is against policy.
Few observations:
Service advisors in the Ather service team seem novice and are stubborn. They hardly give an ear for the customer’s grievances/suggestions.
Earlier, the service team used to do a good service and also hear to the issues with the vehicle. They used to follow up promptly.
Degradation in customer experience, might be directly proportional to the number of vehicles sold.
Ather scooters which are out of warranty are very few in number as of now. But moving forward, this number is only going to increase.
Ather should have a transparent policy about dealing with out of warranty issues and service. Customers are already facing issues, while scooters are under warranty.
Ather should also put out the list of components and its prices on its website for its customers to refer to. Onboard charger costing 33K came as a shocker to me, 1/3 rd cost of the whole scooter.
I tried to dig further. I found that the price charged by Ather Service center is atleast 10 % more than what Ather dealers in Bangalore charge us, for the same product.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to take Ather team’s word on face value. Hope this does not lead to trust issues.
Any other suggestions forum ??
What might be the reason the Ather Service team is adamant on replacing the onboard charger instead of trying an economical solution !?
They must have a lot of it in stock and the only way to clear them is to sell them. it’s a product that no one will buy because the only user which is capable of buying is 1gen users, Even if they keep the onboard charger there will be no problem see if you can still charge the scooter with DOT or PC.
firstly sorry for the delayed reply…and sorry for the experience you are having
This was one of my concern when i got to know that whenever we go to service center with an issue instead of reviving the part they just replace everything (initially I though they are trying to understand the issue by taking the parts to the vendor/Lab but eventually realized it is a practice they adopted)
less customer’s less stress and most importantly everything covered under warranty so approval from the warranty claim use to happen without resistance - so the heat is not felt by Service team but now claims wont be easy as earlier -
these will quickly grow from now on - june is just few months away
replace is the mantra all these days
anyway we cannot change that behavior from our side let us look into the issue.
as @power_light2000 already pointed out Ather 1 gen can be charged with 1.5gen portable dc charger…
so easy option is to just buy that charger instead of spending money on on-board charger. (U already have it so no expense at least for now)
insurance is for damage due to accident only,
if that was an option - service center must have jumped and advised that option even before this conversation
Ok. So I had similar issue. My 450 stopped charging last Tuesday evening and would throw C014 & C036 errors - both relating to the onboard charger. I’ve seen this before and the issue was with the cooling fan on the onboard charger not working properly.
After having seen your post earlier I was a little concerned that I might have to either spend ₹32,000 and replace the onboard charger or spend ₹10,000 and buy a Portable DC charger (Gen1.5). The service team picked up the scooter last Friday and, to my relief, called me on Saturday to confirm that the 2 fans on the onboard charger needed to be replaced and it would cost around ₹3500.
Both fans were replaced and the total invoice was ₹3532 (on Service Pro, so no labor or pickup/drop charges). The older parts were returned back to me.
thank goodness only the fans failed, Looks like a lot of GEN-1 owners will share their after warranty services provided by Ather. Let’s see how the ends get tied up.
