Timely

[Pandy]

Well now just as I see posts about battery drain, cold weather, and all that, my machine decides to act up. Purchased Spyder in March of 2011 so this is the first cold we have experienced. So yesterday, rode in to work, about 7 miles, grip heaters and foglights off, parked overnight, (low of about 21F) and this morning, click, thud.No start. Towed in, the tech said battery was really low, cleaned terminals, charged battery and said the charging system was working but the short commute probably wasn't enough to top the battery back up. Now this is ironic, considering that I just started using a battery tender jr and have a heated garage. These are made in Canada eh? I find this rather hard to believe that a short jog like this would take that much out of my battery. A year ago at this time, I would go out under identical conditions and fire up a 24 year old GoldWing. Time will tell I suppose. As soon as I got Spyder home I put it on the tender until tonight's commute. We shall see in about 7 hours what happens. Low is supposed to be in the upper 20s.

Patrick

 

[Bob Denman]

Great explanation Roger! :bowdown: :firstplace:
Patrick,
Good luck and let us know if the Tender helps! :thumbup:

 

[NancysToy]

.....However it sounds to me more like a cold induced loose connection that (fingers crossed) should have been fixed by the terminal cleaning.

:agree: The most common cause of "battery" failure when the weather changes is loose/dirty terminals. When the weather gets cold, especially suddenly, the connection becomes a bit looser as the metal parts shrink. This builds resistance in itself, and also allows corrosion to spread in between the cable and the battery terminal, further insulating the joint. If this resistance rises high enough, you can't get enough amps/volts out of the battery to start the machine. To make matters worse, the battery won't charge well, either.

If you experience a starting or charging issue after the weather changes, the first thing to do is to always disconnect, clean, and firmly tighten the battery connections. After that, charge the battery overnight. In many cases your problem will be solved. If not, a bad battery is probably the culprit, but many batteries are replaced when they are still quite good, just due to poor connections.