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Want a New Battery the lasts

ricerocket71

CB750 Addict
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Ok i have purchased two batteries in the last two years for my K2 but none seem to last, they only come with a 3 month warranty at the most and yes i have had them on trickle chargers. The last one i brought back to life with the salt / de-ionized water trick. but the only last a shot while

So who can recommend a good powerful battery that will last and will not break the bank?
PS I do not want to modify the bike to hold another size other then standard.

Thanks
 
Typical of normal every day grade batteries.

I've heard a lot of guys swear the by Big Crank AGM type.......................

http://www.batterymart.com/c-big-crank-batteries.html

If you are simply setting it on metal in battery box then use a foam pad or the like, vibration kills batteries super fast, it shakes loose the sulfation to pile in the bottom to short out-dead battery then. The AGM type resists vibration and why they were made.
 
I've on my 5th season on a Duralast Gold AGM Battery from Autozone and don't even put it on a tender during the winter in my unheated garage.
 
I pretty much don't use Duralast anything, equating them with MasterPro of the other chain and house brands that are often garbage.

That may well not apply to batteries though. All batteries in the US being from like 3 major companies.............

I worked for the second chain and those house brands just cause sooooooo much trouble.

I'd be willing to bet the AGM there aren't even real AGM, the ones we used were pour-in liquid acid and I'd bet the Duralast do the same and that alone makes it a fake AGM type. True AGM batteries use gel and you can't add any electrolyte to them even if you wanted to. Or even water.
 
I bought a Yuasa AGM battery 3 years ago for my KLR650, from an on-line seller, after going through several conventional lead/acid batteries from FLAPS and Wally World that would only last a year. I never use a trickle charger on the Yuasa, and sometimes don't ride that bike for a month and it has always cranked like a brand new battery. I believe Yuasa is an OEM motorcycle battery supplier for Honda, Kawasaki, and others. Seems like I paid about $135 for that battery, when an equivalent Everstart from Wally's was about $75. I'm going with Yuasa from now on. Only problem is you cant usually get them locally, so if you need a new one "right now", you're stuck with the crap batteries.
 
Yuasa is a good brand.
As for what AMC49 said about my Autozone Battery. In general he is correct, a lot of the time store brands are lowest bidder (Costco Kirkland would be the exception), but sometimes they surprise you. For example, I would generally say and Wal-Mart band stuff is pretty cheap, but I read an article that Walmart's ColorPlace paint is made by Sherwin Williams. I've painted plenty of rooms with that stuff and have had great results.
As for the Autozone battery, I knew my current battery was dying, I was parked across the street form a Autozone when it died. Rolled it across the street, tested and replaced the battery right there. I figured for $80 I'd give it a try. Like I said 5 seasons later and no tender over the Michigan winters, it's still going strong.
 
There will always be exceptions in battery life due to the inexactness of being able even by the makers to tell you how long they will last.

The longest lasting battery I ever had last in a car was 11 years out of a 2 year warranty Walmart battery being a perfect example. The problem of course being you can't see that in any fashion when picking one. I presently have a 'reconditioned' original SuperStart 2 year one that is now on its' 6th year, it makes zero sense but the battery just keeps coming back again and again.

When I sold car ones I saw that a far higher percentage of the upper end more expensive ones fail to make their predicted lives and why I buy a good battery but never the 'best' one. Say, car, most batteries regardless of the price or type or warranty will tend to fail in 3-5 years and doesn't matter how you maintain them, it's locked in the warranty numbers. At least here in Texas...........contrary to most belief, here they die far more in the summer than in the winter, it's killer with underhood temps of 200 degrees, batteries most definitely don't like that. That won't apply to bike batteries of course, them usually being remote to the engine and in more open air.

The amount of shaking going on of the battery figures in there bigtime, the long life I get comes from cars that sit a lot and the batteries are not subject to vibration all day long. The vibration is what shakes loose sulfation to then pile up in bottom of cells until it connects to short them out.

Why if the bike has none vibration reducing pads can make the battery last much longer. And why the AGM idea works on bikes.
 
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