Back in January I purchased an Evolve Carbon GT. It was great fun and I rode it almost everyday. I put some serious kilometres on that board without a problem. That was up until 2 and half months ago when the board jammed on the brakes at 30km/h and threw me off. It gave me some serious road rash on my elbow (which is still not 100% healed to this day) and scratched up my helmet.
I walked home after that as I didn’t trust the board, it was a completely random event and it was during mid acceleration. I did not even touch the brakes slightly. Out of curiousity I took it apart as soon as I got home, just to see if I could smell or see any burnt components of if their was anything obvious that could explain the brakes situation. Nothing smelled burnt and it all seemed ok apart from a capacitor that had not been soldered on correctly.
Armed with a picture of the component that had not been soldered, I sent them a please explain of how such a fault could get past QC. I also asked them if they could explain why my brakes suddenly jammed on and threw me off. They said they had not heard of any issues relating to dropouts or brakes jamming on and told me to send the board in. The very next email the evolve representative then admits to hearing of “one or two faults” but then tries to re-assure me that it was the customers fault and not the board. It was very confusing because first he denied hearing of an issue, then he admitted to hearing of an issue and then he changed his story again to say the issue was merely a customers fault.
I wasn’t buying any of this and demanded a refund just due to the fact that he was acting so shady in relation to a safety issue such as this. The customer service rep tried his hardest to move the conversation away from email and so I gave up and called them. Upon receiving my call I was spoken down to by the “customer service” rep and treated like garbage. He refused to accept that evolve has any issues and that all issues were caused by the customers and not the boards. He even went on to say he builds the boards from the ground up and knows everything about them, which I called him out on as they just buy them direct from a factory in China. This enraged him quite a bit and he went on to threaten me by saying if I took this to VCAT then evolve would crush me and I have no case.
I sent the board in anyway (having to pay for my own shipping, which is stupid considering it is a manufacturing fault.) and upon receiving the board they sent me an email saying that I had sent the board in pieces and that my warranty was void. I rang him and told him that the board being sent in pieces was a lie and it triggered some sort of violent reaction in which he abused me and hung up. He had hung up on me once before as I had made a conference call to him so that my cousin could hopefully have us come to a peaceful conclusion regarding a refund on the board but he abused us both and hung up. He then sent an email stating that my cousin was a lawyer (he’s not) and that he felt trapped and could have me charged with blackmail.
All in all Evolve are just a bunch of criminals to me. They are not an Australian business to me, they are merely just a front for a Chinese warehouse. There is no innovation in their products and the only thing they are good at is denying issues and voiding warranties.
For the record, I took a loss on the board and sold it for $1500. It’s not worth my time and neither are they. I hope they grow up and start taking safety seriously. If one person dies due to their negligence then the whole e-sk8 scene comes under fire and then we start seeing people get harassed and fined for doing something they love.
Just build your own board. Fuck the man ! $ 1500 builds you a very nice DIY board that would crush any off the shelf China board disguised as a quality board.
What scared me was that it was a completely random event. If you went too far away from the board or stopped the signal by putting things in front of the remote it would just come to a rolling stop. When it threw me off it was because the board jammed the breaks randomly.
I was really hoping I could have a pleasant experience like boosted board owners have with boosted but sadly that was not the case.
Very well said mate. Unfortunately i had $1,999 to burn on the day and didn’t completely think my decision through. In any case, the wound has healed and I am still alive to ride a DIY build.
My friend is making me one on account of the absolute shi* service that I got from evolve. It’s a 4wd hub build called the black beauty. Looking forward to getting back out there!
Just some quick questions:
Why would you be walking away from your board when it is moving? And what would you be putting in front of your remote when you are riding your board?
You wan’t your board to roll to a stop when it loses signal. What else would you want to see happen?
Personally, I would rather buy a board from a smaller, honest seller like Ollin Board Co, @psychotiller, or @longhairedboy, than a giant company any day. The only bigger company I’ve seen take care of their customers is boosted, and ehhh, not my style. Everyone else, the bottom line is money.
I know I’d love to but I would just get raped by the conversion fees from AUssie Dollarydoos to USD and EURO.
I just didn’t think an Australian company would stoop so low and give such terrible customer service and at the same time ignore a safety concern such as dropouts and brakes malfunctioning.
The best part was when I asked them how the ABS system works on their boards. They ignored it after I asked three times in an email and when I asked the bloke I was dealing with he ignored it the first time and then the second time I asked he told me he wasn’t a technician and couldn’t explain the system.
The ABS brakes on evolve boards is a flat out lie, but they won’t admit it.
If you spent time on facebook groups I think you could find similar claims as to what you experienced…
Feel bad for the experience you got with your first eboard… but i hope you got some ‘lessons’ out of this…
As others suggested, you can go with more ‘local’ / focused board builders, who are not so much into hype or marketing all the time.
Or, if you got time for it, build it on your own… though I think if you are keen enough you can find a few people from which to get a board from… maybe you wont get CF deck with integrated battery right away but still… for example check @Kaly builds.
Though it looks like your problem might be you are not in states, right? So everything would need to come in as parts probably, with biggest problem being how to ship the battery, if you dont assemble one yourself / get suitable one locally.
lol, of course, enertion mods stepping up to doing Jasons bidding. You even so much as say a word about enertion, your message will be removed. But talk bad about evolve? Oh, please go on… This forum is a joke…
I had the same issue, first week I had the evolve board. I rode it around the block a bit to get comfortable with it, and slowly proceeded down a gradual hill. Seemed ok, so I started to speed up, and I was just about to start slowing back down when the board just stopped moving. Didn’t hit anything, just like the brakes locked on full. F@&#ed up my hip bad, bleeding from knee and wrist really badly, and I never rode that thing again. I couldn’t hardly walk for about a month and a half.
