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In the 36 years I have owned Babieca (1974 R75/6), I have put only 143,000 miles on her - deployments, overseas tours, and some laziness on my part. During that time I have put in seven batteries. I have only been stopped on the road for problems four times. Three of those times were battery induced stoppages. The fourth was a points chest full of water that eventually rusted through the points spring and it stopped - wiped it out, put in spare points and back on the road in 45 minutes.

The first battery failure was due to the original (&*^%*%#$%# Varta POS. It gleefully corroded terminals and leads. I was in Snyder, Texas at a stop light in 1975 when it ate thru the positive cable. Fortunately I was at the door of the local hardware store and was able to buy a brass screw-on terminal fitting. I later made/carried three short cable inserts in case it happened again - never did.

The second battery failure was a Yuasa in 1981. Yuasas were pretty good and reduced or eliminated corrosion. They lasted pretty well too; four years or more. Unfortunately I was in Yuma, Arizona in the fourth year of the battery's life. Fortunately I have a kick starter and the battery had just enough juice to allow that method of starting.

I installed a Walus battery tray soon therafter and got 5 years each out of three U1 tractor batteries. They gave good indication of impending failure and were a massive 32 A size. The last one lasted five years despite being half cooked by a bad voltage regulator.

With the advent of AGM, I became enamored of the "smaller" BMW size 28 A batteries and in January of 2010vreturned to the standard BMW battery tray and a WestCo 28 A AGM battery. Last week, 1.5 years later, 50 miles outside of Hays, Kansas in 100 degree heat, the WestCo died. A great guy on a Honda GW from Tennessee jump started me and accompanied me to Hays (a three-hour episode too long to recount here), where a 20 A AGM WalMart motorcycle battery and an initial charge at the Harley shop got me back on the road to and from Denver. Had I retained my Walus tray I could have bought a $25 U1 tractor battery at Home Depot. Oh well...

What are your experiences with batteries failing? How many of you have had AGM batts fail prematurely?

Semper pondering,
Teo

I had a Westco I think. Bought new and well less than a year later it fried. Went on a trip and got back, parked it and nothing when I got back on it. Internal fault of some sort.
In went an Odyssey 925. Very happy with it so far.
This is in a Mono r80. Had to use the short style tool tray and it is a tight fit due to the height but it does.

Knock wood, I've never had a battery really "fail" by leaving me stranded. They usually begin to show their age by not cranking the engine like it used to. I've used lead acid batteries from the beginning. In recent memory, I've had 1 or 2 Yuasa batteries and I'm on my second BMW Mareg battery. I typically get 4-1/2 to 6 years out of my batteries.

Kurt in S.A.

I'm going to chime in here only because I'm still angry about my Westco experience (s). 3 of their batteries, actually 4 counting the one which was DOA, in three different machines: 1 year each out of two of them(tended,etc), this is year 2 for the third.

You would have to pay me $129.99 plus shipping to use a Westco ever again!

Wish I'd been hip to the U1, just purchsed an $89 AGM courtesy of AdvanceAuto. We'll see.

Never had an AGM fail on the road, only from ignoring it all winter - for a few winters.

Odysseys have (I believe) a three year warranty, but they are a lot more money. I've never had one fail under warranty.

The thing I like best about the Odyssey is its ability to maintain voltage. In my Oilhead, as a conventional battery ages and begins to deteriorate, it has trouble putting out enough voltage right after startup to keep the ABS from "faulting." The Odyssey never has that problem - they seem to continue to put out higher voltage right up until they die.

Fekking Odyssey crapped out on me after only a couple years, so I bought another two.

Interesting histories. I used Vartas back in the day in my /5. Come to think of it, I did have a lot of trouble with cable corrosion. Had one fail close to home once. Been using Westcos almost exclusively in all bikes (plus my wife's Miata) for about the last ten years. Never a problem. Had an Odyssey in my 1150GS go south a couple of years ago long before the warranty was up. Replaced it with a Westco.

Original cable failures were largely due to poor installation of the terminals by BMW.

Back then I didn't know much about high current terminals. Now with my cell site work, I have learned a lot.

A properly crimped terminal just won't easily fail.

As a BMW dealer, we always gave the customer the new bike with the battery supplied new. We knew that they were likely to fail early on, but some, not many, lasted a long time.

BMW blamed dealers for improper charging for the failures. At dealer meetings this was often brought up. Nobody had much success with the original batteries. The Japanese brands were far better.

A battery stores energy. Saying it put out too little voltage only means that the voltage drops in an attempt to supply enough current.

I'm sure it was a Varta that came with my R65 in 1980. I could get 1, maybe 2 years out of them. I kept buying them because they were OEM and I didn't know any better. I finally gave up after about the 3rd one and tried a Yuasa. Like night and day. I still had the hassle of putting a charger on it during times of non-use, but at least it worked. I probably averaged 5 years a piece with the Yuasas.

My current battery is a Odyssey 680 which I bought in April of 2006. It has has numerous periods of down time (not riding). I've never put a trickle charger on it, just 30 minutes or so with my 10 amp charger. No corrosion, no acid - I love it! And it is still going strong.

I did have one positive cable get corroded on me back in the Varta days. Apparently my replacement cable had better crimps.

Duane Ausherman wrote: A battery stores energy. Saying it put out too little voltage only means that the voltage drops in an attempt to supply enough current.

No. When I said it doesn't put out enough voltage, I meant that it doesn't put out enough voltage.

This is voltage drop just after it has put out the big amperage for the starter. If I understand the sequence correctly, right after starting, the Oilhead does a check sequence on the ABS. Conventional batteries don't have to age much before their recovery after providing starting current is inadequate to get the voltage up high enough to keep the abs from faulting due to low voltage. The AGM batteries seem to recover virtually instantly, and the ABS startup does not fault. They maintain this performance throughout their life, whereas the conventional lead/acid batteries develop this voltage recovery problem long before they have trouble holding enough current to easily start the bike.

If the voltage drop problem is occurring during the starting process, then, you're right, it is happening during the battery's attempt to provide enough current for the starter, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a voltage problem which occurs while the battery still has the ability to provide plenty of current to the starter, and one which does not occur with the AGM.