I haven't ridden my bike in about a week. This morning I went to ride, turned on the ignition, got the little start up thing it does, then when I pressed the ignition, deadsville. As in nothing, no more lights, nothing. I turned it off, back on, nothing.

It's the original battery on an '09, and I haven't had any problems with it before. I regularly go several days without starting it and it always works fine.

Is this a dead battery? I thought of a fuse maybe, but it seems that everything is dead so that doesn't seem likely. Though, the battery just dying like this doesn't seem very likely either. Is it worth buying a charger and trying that? Or do I just go with a new battery?

Thoughts?

C

6 year old battery was all she wrote. 5yrs is about average. Not bad. A new battery is in the cards.

This morning I went to ride, turned on the ignition, got the little start up thing it does, then when I pressed the ignition, deadsville. As in nothing, no more lights, nothing. I turned it off, back on, nothing.

The little startup thingy was the last straw. When min went on me, it was during winter storage. Starter button did zip. Don't recall if the lights went on...I am pretty sure the fuel pump prime didn't happen. What did happen was a loud clicking noise coming from the ECU and the instrument cluster + flashing of instrument cluster. Apparently there was some juice left in it. Maybe I could have charged it up and used a while longer but who wants to get stranded without a battery? I replaced mine with a Sorai which seems to be headed for another season of good service. This will be years 4. The stock lasted me 3 years.

When my battery died at Crater Lake, I had just stopped to take a picture, got back on and...click... everything goes dead. A battery can fail with absolutely no warning. And as my son, ( heh heh) found out, you cannot bump start a ZX14 with a bad battery. ( I made him push me up and down the parking lot...)

Mad

Get a Shorai and get a charger. I believe it's going to be my third year on that battery! I bring the charger with me on long trips just in case!

Just replace the battery. If it's the original from an '09 you got way more than your money's worth. If you carefully keep them charged and, if possible, out of temperature extremes, you can get perhaps 5 years, but that takes a lot of work. I usually just put mine on a "keeper" for a day or so each week during the winter and get pretty good results. But after 3-4 years they are always "iffy". And once they start going downhill the ultimate failure always seems to come quickly.

I usually just look for a sale and have one "in stock". Most batteries are shipped and sold now with the acid in a separate container. The shelf-life of a "dry" lead-acid battery is pretty much forever.

Try www.batterymart.com they usually have good stuff.

Awesome advice, thanks guys! I ordered the Shorai that Rook featured in his battery changing tutorial. It was way cheaper than I thought it would be, actually - Amazon has it for about $125 shipped, while I could get a stock replacement locally for about $100. Only downside is no bike for the weekend. Meh.

Anyone happen to have done the research on which charger I should buy to go with that Shorai?

C

My bikes (4) up here in Canada go through a 5-6 month winter storage! Trickle chargers are great! I attach a lead to each battery and snake it through for easy access and leave it there year round. You can buy extra leads from yuasa. Some have inline fuses attached. My charger came with one sae connector and another with alligator clips see pics. I just got mine from walmart 40 bucks. Check your owners manual mine had a couple of recommendations for chargers. One time during riding season I had left the key on overnight on my old zx 600 with one of the old style batteries you can add water to, it was completely dead, some cells needed topping up with distilled water, threw it on the trickle charger overnight and it was resurrected from the dead! Still using it. When you have $400-500 in batteries a $40 buck charger is worth it. Battery Tender and Yuasa make popular chargers can't tell you which one is best. I rotate my charger from bike to bike every few days or week to week during the storage season. BTW, all my bikes started with no battery issues this season! Just a slow start to the riding season this year. It snowed today!

* Last updated by: CowboyCarl on 4/18/2014 @ 7:38 PM *

Got that Shorai battery in last night. Amazing how light that is... doesn't seem possible that thing can power a vehicle!

C

Awesome advice, thanks guys! I ordered the Shorai that Rook featured in his battery changing tutorial. It was way cheaper than I thought it would be, actually - Amazon has it for about $125 shipped, while I could get a stock replacement locally for about $100. Only downside is no bike for the weekend. Meh.
Anyone happen to have done the research on which charger I should buy to go with that Shorai?

Cool!.

The BS12 has the same specs as the OEM battery. From what I recall, the OEM seemed to crank the motor over faster but the Shorai BS12 always got the 14 fired in 4-7 turns (depending on the air temp). Now that I have had BS12 in for over 3 years, the 14 doesn't like to wake up after sleeping for a couple days in the cold (could be plugs which have never been changed). I put the Shorai battery on the Shorai maintainer set in CHARGE mode so that it is at peak power for these situations. There was no problem with cold starts when the bike was ridden every day like last Fall.

I put my Shorai on a maintainer for lead/acid batteries for a short time during its first storage season. I think it worked ok but the Shorai maintainer is the only thing to be used that will balance the cells so that your battery will have full power. That's all I use with it now and the only thing Shorai recommends. Another $80.

Comes with pigtails that plug into the hole under the rubber dust cap.

Ok I'll need to order one of those as well. Cold starts aren't really a problem here in New Orleans, but the charger seems like something I should have. Thanks!

C