Battery On Its Way Out?

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When running, the bike with charge between 14.63 - 14.65 consistently.

While that's OK, it should ideally be around 14.8V. Maybe a good cleaning of the connectors might liberate another few tenths?

When I rewired my '90 VFR750, eliminating the plugs and using fatter wires gave me an extra 0.5-0.6volts.

Of course in your case, the R/R itself may be keeping the volts down to 14.6. What model of R/R is it? Does it have the monitor wire?

[Guest]

I had the same issues at about the same battery age.

Replace battery!!!!!!!!

what he said......... :biggrin: :biggrin:

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This Chinese battery is pretty crappy, and not that much cheaper than a Yuasa. 14 months is not a good lifetime!

On my VF500, the battery was of the non-sealed variety, and apart from only using distilled water to top it up, it had no special care. I ran it flat several times by leaving the key in the 'Park' position, and yet the same battery was on the bike when I sold it after 5 and a half years of use, and still going strong.

Dunno how old the battery was that was in the VFR last year, but it was at least 4 years old.

EDIT:

Did some web surfing, and rang a dealer or two. The plot sickens - Yuasa batteries are horrendously expensive, due to the weak NZ$ and strong yen. For a standard battery (YTX12-BS) it's NZ$200, whereas the better 6thGen battery (YTZ12S) which has more amp-hours and stronger cranking amps is $400! Goodness knows what the YTZ14-S costs. :biggrin:

However, one of the bike shops has a New! Improved! glassmat battery that although it's made in China, is apparently "pretty blingy" and "considerably cheaper". Apparently they're very good, but they've only been stocking them for a few months, so it's a bit of a gamble whether they'll go the distance. However, unlike my Krappy Koyo, at least they've got decent technology, in the form of glass mats, a one-year warranty, etc.

NUTHER EDIT:

The "New! IMPROVED!! Now with added ergs!!" battery is a MotoBatt, and looks pretty darned good. :biggrin:

The replacement for the Yuasa YTX12-BS is a MTBX12U, and it's 14Ah (c.f., the Yuasa's 10Ah).

Strangely, the replacement for both the YTZ12S and YTZ14S is the MTBX9U, which is only 10.5Ah, and NZ$86. :schla15:

The nice helpful lady's going to get both in for me, and check with the distributors what the CCA figure for each is.

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Now I'm confused. :biggrin:

After two nights on the battery charger, the battery seems to have stopped it's terminal slide into despondency. Yesterday when I got home after my commute, the battery was reading 12.9x volts. This morning it was down to 12.65V. It will be interesting to see what it reads on Monday morning, after 4 nights of sitting (weather forecast for this weekend is atrocious, so I'm not likely to be riding).

Is it possible for just a wee bit of time on a battery charger to rejuvenate a battery? If so, is that because it does a better job than the alternator + R/R?