Why Won't My Motorcycle's Battery Hold a Charge?

Have you ever to jumped on your bike and prepared yourself to go on your daily commute or the weekend’s adventure only to realize your battery is dead after you thought you had it charging the whole time. Riders tend to sit back and think they did everything right, they hooked it up to your battery tender or stored it away in the proper place assuming it would be ready to go, however, doing all of those important things is not always the solution to these issues. We want to familiarize you with some common reasons as to why your battery may not be holding a charge even after properly keeping it stored. We will also go over some solutions and ways you can prevent your battery from not holding a charge.

When trying to figure out why your battery may not be holding a charge, consider how long you have had it.

Battery Sulfation:

Battery Sulfation is a buildup of lead sulfate crystals in a lead-acid, sealed batteries. Sulfated batteries can cause loss of cranking power, longer charging times, shorter running times between charges, and dramatically shorter battery life. This is a natural process that happens with every battery, and happens each time they are used. If they are overcharged or undercharged or left discharged, some for even just several days, they will rapidly develop sulfate. Even when a battery is stored fully charged, sulfate will form unless a desulfating battery charger is used. Using or storing batteries in temperatures above 75°F accelerates the rate of self-discharge and increases battery sulfation dramatically. In fact, the discharge rate doubles, as does sulfation, for every 10°F rise above room temperature.

Solution: Sulfated batteries can be safely restored using high frequency electronic pulse that are not high voltage. Use pulse type chargers that use high range of frequencies. Using such chargers ensures both old and newly formed battery sulfation will be safely dissolved in the shortest possible time.

“Depleted Past Recovery” or Neglecting your Motorcycle and Battery

The primary reason for the relatively short cycle life of a lead acid battery is depletion of the active material. Each battery system has unique needs in terms of charging, depth of discharge and loading that should be observed. Allowing your battery to completely die multiple times easily ruins your battery. Batteries can completely die due to:

Letting a bike sit for long periods of time
Only ever riding short distances (this does not allow the bike’s charging system to fully recharge the battery)

If you run excessive electrical accessories on a bike, they can also drain a battery much faster than a stock bike would.
Solution: Keep the battery on a charger and try not to overcharge it. If possible take your bike out for a quick ride.

Faulty Charging Systems:

The battery itself is charged by a generator driven by the engine, and as long as the engine is running there will be a current flowing through the battery. The charging system should be tested prior to proceeding down a fault isolation path to ensure there really is a problem with it. Sometimes batteries may require a little jump start to help them to get going.

Solution: The charging system health can be assessed by making two simple battery voltage measurements. Check what your battery should be measuring at!

Using the Wrong Size Battery

Having the wrong size in your battery can be a big issue. If you have a bigger cc bike nd you are attempting to run a small cc battery on the bike the battery will do its best to power the bike but eventually fail. This does not mean that the battery is no good necessarily, just that it is the wrong battery. Before assuming that there may be an electrical problem with your bike check what size battery you should be running on your bike. And again we’d like to mention if you have the correct battery for your bike but excessive accessories you may want to go up in battery size.

Solution: Check manufacturer’s online spec or ask your local parts department what battery you are supposed to have in your bike.

Bad Connections and Shorts

Issues in your electrical system may be why you believe your battery is not holding a charge.

Faulty wire grounds are a very common problem, but can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint. Symptoms of a bad ground can range from a completely dead bike to electrical components working intermittently. Checking all of the grounds on your motorcycle can be done quickly if you know where they all are. If you don't, your service manual should have all of the locations noted. A poor or intermittent ground connection can cause charging system problems including no charging or charging voltage out of range, either high or low.

Solution: Fixing faulty grounds is inexpensive and just requires a bit of patience. It's a good idea to check for faulty grounds early in the troubleshooting process.

Figured it out?

All of these issues can be avoided as much as possible with proper care and maintenance. However, make sure you are aware of and accept when it is time to just replace the battery. If your battery is no good anymore, figure out what you did wrong so that can be avoided on the next battery you purchase. Batteries are easy to maintain when you are aware of what it takes to take care of it. We hope these common issues help you maintain your battery’s charge and remember the best defense is to simply ride your Motorcycle!

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