Owners filed 9 complaints about this vehicle with federal regulators, most often about the electrical system. No safety recall has been issued.
| Component | Reports | Crashes | Fires | Injuries | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrical System | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Service Brakes | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
| Wheels | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Power Train | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Engine | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Motorcycle goes from Drive mode to Park mode and then doesn’t go back into drive mode. This happens while riding. Tried calling the sondors hotline but the company is bankrupt. Checked online and it seems multiple customers have this problem. This is highly unsafe.
Complete engine power failure while driving in traffic. Unable to engage powertrain. Vehicle would not enter drive mode. Vehicle completely disabled. Was stranded on side of the road in unsafe location There are several other reports on various message boards (Reddit, etc) of similar issues with Sondors Metacycles. There was no warning prior to this happening. sudden engine shutdown/failure.
Motorcycle begins to vibrate, shake, and wobble when speeds reach between 40-60 mph. This is available for inspection upon request. Safety of the rider and other drivers nearby are put at risk when the vibration begins to affect the control of the vehicle. The problem has been confirmed by an independent service center. The problem first appeared when the motorcycle was delivered by the manufacturer back in December 2022.
Rear brake is in a non-standard location on the handlebar. When stopping the brake was actuated instead of a clutch and the rider fell over.
Sondors sent a letter stating a protective sleeve is needed around the vehicles main high voltage cable (electric motorcycle). This is both an extreme electrocution hazard but also a fire hazard. The company made no effort to correct the defect directly. Additionally, the wheels/tires are extremely unbalanced and dangerous to ride as delivered by the company. They initially acknowledged the issue, but claim the wheels cannot be balanced. Additional requests to the company to provide service have been ignored for several months now.
I pulled away from my residence in the city and way generally under 25mph. When I finally reach a location that allowed for higher limits, the bike shut down the display and power to the wheels after it got up to 30mph. After the first occurrence, it would happen periodically without any kind of warning. I had to unlock the bike and restart it for each time it happened.
The Sondors Metacycle is a motorcycle with non standard controls. Specifically it has two hand brakes like a step through scooter, instead of a foot brake. I do not own one but on a recent test ride I crashed the bike when I went to pull the clutch at a stop, and accidentally locked the rear wheel. This is dangerous and will lead to more accidents as the bike is targeting new riders who will learn bad habits. The bike should have a foot brake per FMVSS.
Bike was running and suddenly lost power and the D drive disappeared. All switches in the handlebars ceased functioning. I confirmed all controls ceased functioning. Engine kill switch position made no difference. Periodically the bike would flash back into P mode and the switches would work, and, I could enter D but without the ability to accelerate. This period would last maybe 5-10 seconds before the P/D indicator disappeared and all the controls ceased functioning. Bike would not go, needed to be towed. Lost power in traffic. It was raining and may have been some sort of short?
While operating the motorcycle on city streets at ~30MPH the motor suddenly stopped operating without warning. All accessory systems (lights, horn, alarm) continued to function, but powetrain systems stopped responding to input and no longer display status indicators: Park/Drive lights vanished from the display cluster, and motor kill switch no longer indicates its status. Throttle is non-responsive. The vehicle died in the middle of the street, surrounded by active lanes of traffic. I was left in a dangerous situation, and had to dismount the motorcycle and push it out of traffic. The manufacturer has yet to respond to my complaints. User reports on Reddit (/r/metacycle) suggest this sudden loss of power is not an uncommon problem with this vehicle.
9 of 9 complaints, reproduced as filed.
No unusual pattern of severe incidents in the complaint record.
Complaint counts track how many cars were sold and how long they have been on the road as much as they track quality. A common model from 2013 has had a decade to accumulate reports; a rare one from last year has not. The signal worth weighing is in the severity columns, in whether the same component keeps appearing, and in whether the manufacturer eventually opened a recall for it.
Most recent recall on file: none. Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.