Low quality luggage from SW-Motech and poor customer service from Zero
On 10/14/25 I purchased a set of SW-Motech Ion boxes and hardware--the ones shown on the Zero website that is custom made for the Zero DSR. I’ve put over 6500 miles on these boxes and all has been fine until 5/12/26 when the top box snapped off of its mounts while I was on a bumpy dirt road.
I was under the impression that this gear was suitable for adventure bike use. I don't take my bike "off-road" but I have ridden on dirt roads, sometimes very bumpy ones. There's a forest service road right by my cabin that is like a washboard. I don't ride it hard, but it jostles as you go over it. Anyway, that's where the box fell off. And for the record, the box wasn’t heavily loaded—all I had in it was a lunch and a jacket.
I figured with a company like SW-Motech it'd be a cinch to get warranty support. I was wrong. They told me that "Unfortunately, this luggage rack is an OEM Zero product. While we did manufacture this part, we are not able to offer customers warranty coverage for it. You will need to go directly through Zero for this."
So no help from them, even though their name is all over the gear.
And Zero? They haven't even responded to my emails to ownersupport@zeromotorcycles.com. Their phone service no longer welcomes owner support requests, so I can't even get anyone to talk to me.
Honestly, at this point, I'd be perfectly happy just buying the broken brackets if I could find someone who'd sell them to me for a reasonable price. But I won't pay $510 for a whole new rack assembly. I just need two brackets.
It looks like I may have to weld them myself for a repair. In the meantime, my top box is sitting uselessly on my bench in my garage.
I could not recommend anyone to buy SW-Motech gear and I'm afraid to say that my enthusiasm for Zero has just dropped by a bunch.
Still, I love the bike. It's a great motorcycle, even if the company has blown me off.
