Just checking here before I go off and buy a new one.
I had my bike (a '97 Suzuki Marauder) sitting in my garage untouched from about October through a week ago. A week ago, I went out to try to start it, and the battery was predictably dead. I jumped it, let it idle for 10ish minutes, put it away. The next day, still dead. Oops. I figured I didn’t let it run long enough, so I jumped it, went for a 20 minute ride, put it away, then later that day, made an across town trip (10 minutes) left it for a few hours, then rode back (10 minutes). I didn’t touch it the next day, and the day after that, when I tried to start it, it was dead.
The starter will crank a little bit, but not enough to start it.
So I figure either I probably need a new battery. For what it’s worth, I’ve had the bike for 2.5 years and have no idea when the battery was last replaced.
Probably needs replaced, but first I think it needs properly charged. Not sure how motorcycles are, but car alternators aren’t intended to charge a dead battery, just to maintain a full charge.
Every time I’ve had a car battery go dead, I just get it jumped and then run it for a while, and it’s (generally) fine. That would seem to contradict your statement.
No, his statement is true. You’ve just been lucky.
Possibly the “dead” car batteries were too low on charge to start the car, but not so low that the alternator couldn’t get them up to (at least near) full charge. As stated, that’s not what alternators are designed to do, but it doesn’t mean they can’t do it at all. Typically they don’t do it well (never reaching 100% charge) and/or it overstresses the alternator and shortens its life.
A battery that sat for 5 months was probably fully discharged or darn close to it. That’s just too much for an alternator to recharge. Now, it is possible, maybe even likely, that the battery is shot and won’t take and hold a charge. But that is not proven by the alternator’s failure to charge it. If you want to be sure about the battery, charge it at a slow rate (<2 amps) with an actual battery charger.
If you want to maximize a battery’s life, don’t let it get significantly discharged. If you want to maximize an alternator’s life, don’t make it try to charge a significantly discharged battery.
Seconded - as I personally have had a bike battery thoroughly low on charge after a few months of non-use, and it still came back OK after being slow-charged overnight, and at the last count was (perhaps fortunately) none the worse for the experience.
Ok, so perhaps I should consider slow-charging the battery first. Is there a service that would do that for me, or should I just buy a charger? Any reason not to just go with the cheapest one I find?
I’m planning on selling the bike, so it may be cheaper for me to just buy a new battery if the charging is going to be uncertain and potentially costly.
I’d get a Battery Tender, it’s good to keep the bike on a trickle charger when you’re not using it for a while anyway. Places like Amazon would have them online, this is the one I use on my Honda 750.
Sometimes, letting a battery die will ruin it to the point where it can be charged back up and be fine for awhile, but eventually it will lose its charge again. Rinse and repeat. There is also the possibility of parasitic drain (I think that’s the name of it) where some kind of wiring problem or something will drain the battery over time. This would be easy to test, just unhook the battery after you charge it up, and see if it still loses its charge. If it does, time for a new battery.
Make sure the fluid levels in the battery are right; usually you cn see the levels because the battery case is semi-transparent. Just add distilled water to each cell if it is low. Of course if it drained the cahjrge and froze, the ice would have pushed the cell plates so they may be touching, in which case it may not hold a good charge.
Bad battery cells can also be from being dry to long, there seems to be crystalline gunk buildup shorting the plates.
yep, if I wasn’t careful I needed a new battery in the spring for my bike…
Now that I’m just a “Guest” it doesn’t show my location, but I’m in Santa Barbara, CA. No freezing in my garage.
I’ll take a look at the fluid. I’m still wondering if it’s just going to be lower-hassle and cheaper to just replace the battery than it is to buy a charger that I don’t expect to need after selling the bike, and potentially have to buy another battery anyway.
I don’t understand how charging a battery with the alternator is bad. As long as it’s spinning it’s putting out voltage, somewhere around 14 V. If the battery is charged the regulator sends the excess voltage to ground.
You should get a new battery, a sealed gel agm type if at all possible. Not just because the battery is dead but because you will need a known good charged battery to test the charging system.
If you’re lucky the battery is the only problem. You need to hook a multimeter to the battery terminals and check the voltage. Run the engine at 2500RPM; you should have more than 13.5V. Then run the engine to 5000RPM; you should have NO MORE than 14.8V.
If you get both of those, your regulator/rectifier and stator are working properly. If not, then you will need to dig a little deeper.
Motorcycles generally do not have alternators so car type info is not relevant. You’ve got a stator that is an electromagnet that generates electricity and a regulator rectifier which meters the voltage to a safe level for the bikes electrical system.
Took the battery by Sears and they put it on a trickle charger overnight for me, and pronounced it working properly when they tested it this morning. So, now to put it back in the bike and see if it works. Otherwise there must be some other problem.
Thanks for the info. I have learned several new things about battery care.
