Comparison: Costs / care / (life cycle) maintenance

Costs (comparison)

Whether belt or chain - opinions differ here. Ultimately, it's a matter of taste or conviction as to which type of drive you prefer. If maintenance costs are important to you, there is no getting around a comparison of the material costs for the drive train, which is subject to wear and tear.

• Stromer price: Basis 2023
• Belt specifications suitable for: ST2 / ST3 / ST5 / ST7 with Pinion gearbox

Total costs

If you change the entire drive unit, assuming that you change the five smallest sprockets in the cassette, you get the following total material costs:

In addition, there are labor costs of 80 - 150 €, depending on the hourly rate of the workshop. The stromerforum.ch user 'chnuke' reports that he paid CHF 484.50 (including labor) for the replacement of the entire belt drive train.

Care / Maintenance

In the respective Stromer Operating instructions contains clear instructions on how to care for the chain and belt.

Without proper care, both the chain and the belt will remain far below their normal life expectancy.
See also FAQ - 'Care: chain and belt - what does Stromer say?

Life expectancy

With the 'KMC e11 EPT' chain mostly used by Stromer, you can expect a mileage of around 10,000 km.

A Gates CDX belt and the belt pulleys reach around 20,000 to 30,000 km according to advertising.

Both values only apply with regular maintenance. This is often neglected, especially in the case of belts, because the description 'low maintenance' is often equated with 'no maintenance required' in practice. The consequences are heavy wear, even defects in the drive train and a massively reduced life expectancy. Here are two examples from stromerforum.ch (chnuke) and Facebook.

> See PROBLEMS - Chain (sprocket) / pulleys and belts

The belt has the advantage that no oil or wax needs to be used for maintenance, just water, a brush and, if necessary, a dry cloth. Silicone spraywhen it squeaks.

Conclusion

There is no clear winner. In terms of price, the chain is clearly ahead. In terms of care and maintenance, it is the belt. It couldn't be more direct than the chain, because the belt has a small hysteresis. If you combine the chain with a Tip-Tronic shifting system such as the Shimano Di2, the smoothness and speed of shifting is unrivaled.