Ninebot ES4 / ES3 Plus error 42, 48, 52, premature tire wear, stem wobble

[CZroe]

Pics and video for some of the issues:
https://imgur.com/a/xCcAeAM

I noticed the excessive wear on the front tire when the center rib was gone in a week. It’s three weeks later and now the rest of the tread is gone too. Nothing seems to be rubbing but I did notice a bit of stem wobble yesterday (see video in gallery above). Could that cause it much like a tire alignment issue in a car? I use the rear fender brake a lot and yet the rear tire still looks new. That’s the brake that rubs directly on the tread! If it tolerates that so well, what could possibly be doing this to the front tire?!

So, I discovered the stem wobble while at work yesterday and still had to ride the thing home before I could deal with it, but I had barely left work when it broke down. I released the throttle when going down hill and it started beeping and flashing a red wrench symbol and “52” on the screen. It seemed to stop when I applied throttle and came back when I let go again. I cycled the power and it started doing it right away while I pushed the scooter. I cycled power again and the error went away but there was an extreme loss of power such that I had to push my way home.

When I logged in to make a support ticket I saw that they closed out my previous tickets and marked them “resolved” even though I was still waiting for a response! They literally asked me for two days and I gave them weeks. Even my follow-up message to let them know I was waiting on a response got closed and marked “Resolved” though it never even got a “please give us more time” response like the first one! Ridiculous. I had tried their call center before that but it claimed to be closed for COVID-19.

So until I called them again today the only response I ever got was a person going by “Cheza” asking me to give him or her a couple more days or call the number I had just tried. It’s been weeks. I did respond to make sure they knew I was still expecting a response but obviously that didn’t work.

So, yeah, my first support ticket was because the scooter keeps turning itself on when I leave it charging which floods the room with obnoxious animated lights and beeps just in case you were trying to sleep/ignore it. I realized later on that it does this when reaching the maximum charge I specified in the app which means I am forced to manually unplug it at 80% or below to limit charging to 80%... which means I never needed an app function in the first place since I’m doing it manually. Stupid! By coming on automatically when it stops charging, it is acting like I unplugged it and intend to ride it off. It’s stupid for the FW to equate unplugging with the charge controller simply suspending the charge.

...but back to the remaining errors. I couldn’t carry the charger home on the scooter yesterday so I plugged it back in to charge at work today (drove my brother’s car and couldn’t leave it in the sun) and it started beeping with errors 42 and 48. It never stops beeping either... even when you unplug it. If you turn it on without the charger it will power on but it doesn’t seem to see the external battery.

Today is the 1 month anniversary of my purchase meaning all this was within the first month. I got it from Costco after an EF-4 tornado recently carried my car off before crushing it under a tree. That was only the second time I attempted to commute home from work on it (3.4 miles; 5.5 kilometers). We mostly use it to get to and from public chargers with my brother’s Chevy Volt since he can’t charge at home after being displaced by the tornado. That averages about half a mile so it has seen very light use (hence limiting charge to 80%).

I tried calling the number again and was told to remove the battery, try it out, and call them back. Hopefully a replacement battery will work but if not I will need to take this thing back to Costco. Heck, I would’ve already exchanged it except I checked a few days ago (just before all this) and they didn’t have them anymore. I’m certainly not going to spend hundreds shipping it around for an issue when it is still new.

What would you guys do? I don’t have a car anymore and thought I’d spend twice as much for this scooter over another so that I would have Segway’s warranty and support. So far that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.