Brakes on a Kaabo Wolf too "grabby"

shooflyshoo

I have finally started riding my Wolf King GT (I have healed enough from my accident 9 weeks ago). It seems to me like the brakes grab all of a sudden. They are not smooth and linear like my last scooter. I don’t know if it is because they are improperly adjusted or this is just the way that they are. I have bled the brakes and centered the disc to the calipers but they are still not as smooth as I expected. They have plenty of stopping power but they are a little unpredictable.

If this is the way that they are suppose to be, how difficult is it to upgrade to Maguro brakes? From what I understand, they are the smoothest brakes you can buy.

PaulN

shooflyshoo Are you sure that you are not experiencing the electric regenerative brakes grabbing. They are Hella strong on my Mantis Pro even on level ⅗, so you can turn them down in the P settings on the EYE display if you want or always be prepared to stop suddenly. Read the last pages of your manual to adjust.

DjabootyLebowski

shooflyshoo Im pretty sure I figured it out. You power on the Wolf King GT hold the M button before 30 seconds is up. Go down to advanced settings. There you’ll see Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5. Took me awhile to figure this out lol but those correspond to the level you set you scooter to be on the main screen. So now you pick a level you want to work on, lets say Level 3. Open up Level 3 and now you can set your E ABS to level 1(weakest) and now the brakes work much smoother. You can also adjust the Front wheel acceleration, back wheel acceleration, the Amps provided per wheel. Then your level 3 will be custom to exactly how you’d like. If you want you can mess with people and tell them level 1 is the weakest, but you actually tweeked it to be the strongest! Jk don’t do that. Have fun!

DavidK

Try turning off the regenerative breaking in the P settings to see if this is the cause. (You can always turn them back on).

shooflyshoo

Yes, I do have the anti lock/regen braking turned off. I guess a better term for the braking is that they are not very progressive, I go from having a very small amount of stopping power to way too much so slowing down can be scary.

I did contact Magura about using the MT5e brakes but they said that the 3mm thick rotors wont work and I really don’t want to go to 2mm rotors.

I am still looking for solutions. I am going to try to readjust the brakes this weekend to see if I can get better results.

BrentWallace

shooflyshoo I don’t think there’s a regenerative brake setting like we’re being told. Turning ABS off and on does not affect regenerative braking and that’s the only thing we have an option for.

MichaelKelley

I would double check your Regen settings.

DrScootLittle

This won’t really affect braking power, but you can try adjusting the levers inward. Use a small allen wrench (2mm?) to adjust the grub screw that points outward from the lever (points to the right, from the right lever and to the left from the left lever, when viewed from the riding position).

Some people find that adjusting them closer to the handlebar makes them feel less grabby.

-Paul

shooflyshoo

Loosening the calipers, squeezing the brake levers to make sure that they are perfectly aligned, re-tightening has helped. In addition, Just using the brakes (wearing down the pads a little) has helped. Both of these have significantly improved the situation but they are still not quite as progressive as they are on my other scooter.

At the end of the day, a combination of making sure that the brakes are as perfectly aligned as possible, developing the right touch, shifting my weight back and down and anticipating better will all help. This is just a different beast as compared to a sitting scooter or motorcycle.

Thank you for everyone’s input. This has been a huge learning experience.

pokeve9

Exactly. Thanks everyone for sharing their experiences.

BrentWallace

I’ve gone through the p settings 10 times on my wolf warrior GT and can find no info for adjusting regenerative brake power. I can turn ABS on and off. Advanced settings offers no regenerative brake options. Am I completely missing something here? Or did they forget to put that in the display? Really would like to turn them off. The brakes on this thing are a death trap.

shooflyshoo

I figured out one of the issues. Things are labeled very poorly. The ABS under the normal menu is the anti lock brakes which I keep off. The ABS under the advanced is the regeneration settings that can be set to level 1, very low to level 5 which is very high. In addition, it can take couple of seconds for the regeneration to kick in once you squeeze the brakes.

BrentWallace

shooflyshoo awesome, thank you so much for that info! This helped a ton! The whole assistant one through five thing is a little confusing.

shooflyshoo

sorry, i gave you some incorrect information, the ABS under advanced is for turning on and off the antilock brakes, if you go under the assist, that is where you set the magnitude of regen braking for each “speed mode” or “assist level”

BrentWallace

Oh now you clarified even more for me! So you’re saying each assistant level is corresponding to the 1 through 5 gearing options. So I can go in and change how each one through five gear behaves! I was wondering what was going on because I thought I had it fixed. Turns out I only turned regen braking off on gearing option 5. Thanks again!

shooflyshoo

np, documentation is my biggest complaint about this scooter.

PaulN

shooflyshoo I have the mantis (still a Kaabo), it came with a small booklet, however the pages with the P code settings were very simple + clear. I felt the standard regen setting the scooter was set at from the factory was too high. When your doing 30mph, and you hit the brakes you better be planted and ready for a forward pitch.

Plus on the mantis IMO it’s one flaw is the flexing, creaking stem, so I try not to manhandle it ever. The too strong regen brakes would at times force me forward putting force on it. When i ride, I try for the most part hold the handlebars lightly and use my body and tilting to maneuver and turn with only light hand inputs. Your WW however seems more robust so probably not as much an issue.

shooflyshoo

The dual stem on the Wolf King GT is solid and I abuse it.

The menu on the display has multiple layers and there is no explanation in the manual what all of the setting mean. The more I experiment the better the scooter gets. For example, I have reduced the torque (current) to the front wheel as compared to the rear wheel since there is no way to get as much traction on the front wheel. This minimizes the amount of tire squeal form the front tire. I have also limited the speed in speed mode 1 and 2 since I use them when I am riding on sidewalks and pedestrian trails and there are speed limits. I use speed mode 3 for most of my riding. I haven’t figured out what to use speed mode 4 and 5 for but they can be configured to anything i.e. very steep long descents where I want different regen and torque settings.

LucMartin

OK I got the Mantis king GT (the hell of a machine) to break perfectly and progressively.
A) Make sure that the calipers are well adjusted, it takes about 5 minutes there are some videos about it.
B) Most important go to advanced settings -> ABS assistant -> set all levels to level 1. There are 5 levels related to the “gear” you are riding on. Just kill the assistant, all levels set to level 1.
The ABS assistant is actually not ABS at all! It is misnamed. The assistant will apply breaks in top of your breaking in relation with the level that is set form the “gear” you are riding on. Anything more than 1 or 2 is way too much in my opinion! Level 1 will leave you with actual manual breaking. Ride on! This is the best ride I ever own, and I do own a Tesla model 3

PaulN

LucMartin
Agreed, however once you get used to the electronic braking “jolting” you, you are prepared for it, I have mine set at 3. And you can manually pulse them as you come to a stop to save your pads. But someone jumping on for the first time is going to be very surprised at the stopping power.