Need a little help diagnosing a battery issue. From time to time, my bike won't start, seemingly due to a dead battery. It's totally intermittant, meaning that sometimes it starts up no problem, and sometimes it won't start at all. I have a battery tender, which I hook up about once a week, but everything I've read says that I shouldn't even have to since I ride it almost everyday. My question is, are the symptoms more indicative of a bad battery, or of some sort of short or stator issue?

 

How old is the battery? If it is more than 2 years old or so you might as well just replace it and start there. Take it to Autozone, they should be able to tell you if the battery is bad.

 

Yeah, but make sure the battery connections are good & tight first.

 

My battery is going on 5 years old and works perfectly fine. Replacing after two years is pointless.

It sounds like your battery doesn't hold a charge, or it isn't being recharged. There's a handful of threads on here to help diagnose electrical / charging issues. Search around.

 

The battery is less than a year old.

 

I haven't had good luck with small batteries of this sort. It is certainly worth swinging through Advance and having them check it.


Corroded terminals can also sometimes cause "weak" starting feeling.... It isn't unheard of for cells in batteries to go bad... start there since it is easy, and then work yourself backwards...

 

Should still be under warranty. But if you're anything like me, you probably threw away the receipt, lol. j/k

 

Stupid as this question may be, if the terminals are corroded, which I remember seeing some, how do I clean/refresh them?

I keep everything, so I should have the receipt, it's just a matter of finding the thing!

Thanks for the help guys. I'll hopefully have some news soon.

 

You can use a wire brush or steel wool (or similar) to clean it off. Afterwards, I'd apply a corrosion inhibitor (a little grease) to prevent it from developing again. I've also heard that taping a copper penny next to the terminal will attract the corrosives to it, rather than to the connection.