I've had my 2006 F4i for just over a year now. When I first got it, the battery (I'm assuming stock) charged in about 5 minutes and was only good for a couple starts. I purchased a new battery soon after I bought my F4i and it ran well for the rest of the summer. Over the winter I stored my bike in a garage I didn't have full access to and when I got it out this spring, the battery was dead. It took a good charge and was fine until 2 weeks ago when the bike wouldn't start again. Didn't ride it much between then and now, but enough to keep the battery up. It died when I was in riding around town tonight and I had to push start it. I figure there has to be a short somewhere in the system, but I haven't the first idea where to look. Any ideas?

 

Sounds normal to me. Leaving a battery in a garage over winter is a good way to kill its lifespan. I'd go invest in a trickle charger if I were you. $30 at Auto Zone. I've got the Schumacher with the leads attached to the battery so I plug it in every time I pull the bike in, takes 10 seconds.

 

Yup like the buy before me said, it died if you left your battery in there for that period of time. If you know you're not going to ride it for that long, especially over a long period of time like a few weeks, I would strongly advise that you disconnect the battery and store it in a safe place.

 

Thanks for the input. I don't have a garage to store the bike in so hooking it up to a charger every time isn't feasible. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to take the battery out every time I got done riding, resetting my trip odometers and whatnot. It's not that I didn't ride it between the time I charged it and now, I just didn't ride it every day. I read in another post where someone had a bad ground connection near the headlight connector that was causing their battery to drain. They said they found a fix on the forum, but I wasn't able to find the post. Thanks again for the input.