Back From the Dead: Reviving John's Puri XL Series E-Bike

Some bikes come into the workshop for a tune-up. John's Puri XL series came in on the back foot entirely: it wouldn't go. No power, no throttle, nothing. For a bike that's meant to be John's everyday transport, that's a big problem.

The good news is it left under its own power, with John back in the saddle. Here's how we got there.

The problem: two faults, one dead bike

When an e-bike is completely dead, it's tempting to blame the most expensive part and start replacing things. We don't work that way. A dead e-bike is a chain of parts that all have to talk to each other: battery, wiring, controller, throttle, motor. If any link in that chain fails, the bike sits there like a very heavy ornament.

On John's Puri, it turned out there wasn't one broken link. There were two: a battery problem and a throttle problem. That's what makes jobs like this tricky. Fix one fault and the bike still doesn't work, which can send you chasing your tail if you're not methodical.

Step one: test, don't guess

We started at the power source and worked forward through the system, testing each stage before moving to the next. That's how we confirmed the battery wasn't delivering what the bike needed, and it's also how we found that the throttle had its own fault waiting behind it.

Working this way means the customer only pays for what's actually wrong, and we're not throwing parts at a bike and hoping.

Step two: rebuild the battery

The battery was the big one. Rather than writing off the whole pack, it was rebuilt with brand new cells. Same battery case, same fit on the bike, fresh cells inside doing the work.

A rebuild like this is often what saves a bike from the scrap heap. When a replacement battery is hard to come by, a dead pack can look like the end of the road. It doesn't have to be.

Without good, stable power, nothing downstream can be trusted, so this always comes first.

Step three: sort the throttle

With power restored, the throttle fault was next. Once that was dealt with, the bike finally did what it's supposed to do: twist and go.

Step four: prove it

No bike leaves the workshop on a maybe. We test rode the Puri, checked everything was behaving, and only then called John to come and get it.

The result

John's Puri XL is back on the road, and John's pretty happy about it. That's the two of them out the front of the shop.

A lot of e-bikes and electric mopeds get written off because nobody's willing to have a proper look at them. More often than not, a dead bike is a fixable bike. It just needs someone to diagnose it properly instead of guessing.

Got an e-bike that's given up?

If your e-bike or electric moped has stopped working, has a battery that won't hold charge, or a throttle that's playing up, bring it in. We're a workshop-first shop and we're happy to look at brands we don't sell.

Find us at 2 Wingrove Street, Alphington, or get in touch to book it in at Grace and Pace, Melbourne.