ZF Wants You To Repair Rather Than Replace Your EV’s Drive Unit

New parts and training will give independent garages more ways to fix motors in EVs and hybrid cars.

ZF New EV Repair Kits

Photo by: ZF

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Sep 10, at 3:19am ET

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ZF’s new repair kits let workshops fix individual components instead of replacing entire EV drive units.
Over 100 variants of these electric axle repair kits are coming, alongside new options to service hybrid transmissions.
ZF hasn’t disclosed vehicle compatibility or pricing, so potential savings remain unclear, but it is a step in the right direction.

A worn bearing shouldn’t automatically mean that an EV drive unit needs to be replaced rather than repaired. That’s standard procedure for many EVs, but ZF wants to change that with its new repair kits for electric motors powering EVs and hybrids.

The automotive supplier announced more than 100 electric-axle repair-kit variants that will be rolling out in the coming weeks as part of its “Maintain-Repair-Replace” strategy. It prioritizes component repairs where practical, with remanufactured assemblies available when replacement makes more sense.

ZF says it has manufactured over six million electric motors for multiple automakers, for both pure electric and hybrid vehicles. For fully electric cars, it now offers what it calls the Repair Kit RD, which supplies bearing components for drive unit reduction gearboxes. The latter is the transmission that reduces the motor’s speed and multiplies its torque to drive the wheels, with bearings supporting the rotating shafts.

Gallery: ZF New EV Repair Kits

ZF New EV Repair Kits

Source: ZF

Those bearings are under significant strain as the shafts spin, and poor lubrication, contamination, or misalignment can lead to premature wear and failure. Other kits target ZF’s 8HP transmissions for hybrid applications. The first is called Kit EM, which combines rotor and stator assemblies for second-generation hybrid modules. Kit IN addresses fourth-generation inverters, while Kit ME provides remanufactured fourth-generation mechatronics (a transmission’s electronic and hydraulic control units).

ZF is pushing the message that a gearbox bearing problem does not necessarily mean the motor itself has failed and needs replacing. Giving a workshop the appropriate replacement parts (and training material) creates another option before the entire assembly gets tossed in the scrapheap.

According to Markus Wittig, Head of Business Line Passenger Cars at ZF Aftermarket, “The new solutions are an important next step in our Maintain-Repair-Replace strategy for electrified drivetrains. They make repairability more accessible for workshops and show how ZF is transferring OE expertise into practical aftermarket solutions for e-motors, hybrid modules, inverters and mechatronics. Together with our remanufactured portfolio, this gives workshops more options to reduce downtime, use resources responsibly and support electrified vehicles throughout their service life.”

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There’s a growing market for cheaper remanufactured replacement drive units, like these for early Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro EVs, which are around 30% cheaper than what a dealer would quote. You can also get remanufactured motors for the Tesla Model S and Renault Zoe.

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ZF’s wider remanufacturing catalog for electrified vehicles includes roughly 2,400 transmission entries, including around 600 mechatronics parts. Its EV parts range covers about 92% of Europe’s 20 most common EVs, encompassing brakes, steering, suspension, and drivetrain fluids, not just these new repair kits.

What ZF didn’t say is which cars the new repair kits are for, what they cost, or how much labor the repairs require. Until those details arrive, it’s unclear how big the savings are. Still, replacing the worn part rather than everything attached to it sounds like a step in the right direction and seems to fit with the EU’s broader push to make everything easier to repair and reuse, although ZF hasn’t said whether that influenced its plans.