How to tell if your battery is dead: Difference between revisions

Line 1:

[[Category:Electrical & Lighting]]

The following is important information for the DIY rider. Quite often a seemingly impenetrable electrical problem can be traced to a battery that is no longer serviceable. This should be the first thing you look at.

Here are the classic symptoms of battery failure:

*Gauges on (neutral, oil and temp) but the starter won't catch

*Tach starts bouncing, and then the engine starts to act like it's out of gas.

*Engine keeps coughing, but tach is much higher than it should be, or it is bouncing wildly from low to high.

*Bike surges with turn signal on.

Sometimes a battery just dies. Not necessarily from neglect, age, or use. It just dies. This normally comes from sulfates building up along the bottom and shorting out a couple of the lead plates. It's difficult for many people to trouble-shoot because they'll just toss a voltmeter on the battery, see that it shows 12v DC and right away say it's fine. The truth is, if the resting voltage (after sitting, not on a charger) is below 12.2, that battery needs to be replaced. Below 12v and it's dead, for all practical purposes.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Category:Electrical & Lighting]]
 The following is important information for the DIY rider. Quite often a seemingly impenetrable electrical problem can be traced to a battery that is no longer serviceable. This should be the first thing you look at.
+Here are the classic symptoms of battery failure:
+*Gauges on (neutral, oil and temp) but the starter won't catch
+*Tach starts bouncing, and then the engine starts to act like it's out of gas.
+*Engine keeps coughing, but tach is much higher than it should be, or it is bouncing wildly from low to high.
+*Bike surges with turn signal on.
 Sometimes a battery just dies. Not necessarily from neglect, age, or use. It just dies. This normally comes from sulfates building up along the bottom and shorting out a couple of the lead plates. It's difficult for many people to trouble-shoot because they'll just toss a voltmeter on the battery, see that it shows 12v DC and right away say it's fine. The truth is, if the resting voltage (after sitting, not on a charger) is below 12.2, that battery needs to be replaced. Below 12v and it's dead, for all practical purposes.