battery life, was Re: more intermittent battery failure

>> How long do we think a battery will last? I'm
>>guessing based on my
>> experience that 4 years is the max? <<

>I've always used Yuasa batteries. I think I had one
go >out around the five year mark. Just as a general
rule, I >replace batteries between four and five year
intervals


I'm probably dooming my next ride by offering up the
following data points, but here you go:

The OEM Yuasa in my 96 VFR lasted 5 years, 60k miles

It failed during a trip and the Advance Autoparts or
equivalent $50 replacement lasted less than a season
and the warranty replacement died 6 months later (so
two in less than one year) though I did have an r/r
replacement during that time (the r/r failure mode was
lack of charge, not overcook, so it may or may not
have been a factor in one of those failures)

The next Yuasa has lasted 6 years, 50K+ and is still
going, with another r/r failure/replacement during
that time.

There may be other perfectly fine batteries out there,
but I'm going to stay with Yuasa's from here on out.

I don't keep my battery on a tender/charger during the
season. In the winter, I'll charge it overnight once a
month if I remember to.

The advice to replace the battery if it is suspect and
you're having electrical problems is sound, but I
wouldn't be too hasty to replace it if a test of it
returns decent results and it's less than 3 years old.
It may be the cheapest component in the system, but
it's still 50 to 100 bucks that may not have to be
spent.

I've been told that how you bring a battery to life
has a major impact on it's longevity. Just dumping in
the electrolyte and firing up the bike thirty minutes
later to let it provide the initial charge is
supposedly the worst possible way and that's what may
have caused my first replacement to fail early. I did
a battery tender charge on the second replacement
before initial use. It didn't do any better, so maybe
it's all a crap shoot.

The dealer that provided the replacement Yuasa said
they had a Yuasa supplied charger that could properly
establish the initial charge in less than an hour and
another service manager told me the same thing.

YBLMV

Cheers,
Greg





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