Battery superior testing support

[Goshawk]

Took my year and a half old battery back into BATTERY PLUS company (a chain you may have a store near you). Talk about superior support. Better than all the other chains.

1). No receipt. They looked up the battery code. Said I had six months left on warranty. They will honor warranty if I have problems with my AGM battery. They have Sunday hours.

2). They ran the battery through three hour reconditioning cycle. No charge to me. Seems my own failure to use the battery, and failure to put the battery on a stand-by trickle charger (its in a motorcycle and not getting charged enough) caused issues.

My battery was failing to kick out enough power to turn over my motorcycle engine. Almost got stuck recently while on a run. It's not the battery. Their test power load machine says it is putting out 330 CCA. (Battery is rated for 220 CCA in warranty).

Point is for checking your house or vehicle battery true health you can't go wrong with these folks. All other places will just sell you a battery. The easy expense fix is to sell you a new battery. But that's not the right fix in many situations.


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[frater secessus]

Glad to hear it. I've stopped in Batteries Plus before but thought the prices were seriously high (the price for convenience). Maybe it's time for me to reassess.

 

[Goshawk]

Backing down from my previous recommendation. After talking to my mechanic. If a battery place will not replace the battery if you say it's bad, then that battery service sucks. My BATTERY PLUS battery rejuvenation did not hold. Battery is reading low at 12.3 V consistently after starting (and then turning off engine). A good battery should be able to recover to 12.6 V in fifteen minutes or less after it's shut off.

Problem is a lot of computers and other circuitry get really flaky if the voltage is not at 12.5 or higher consistently.


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[Goshawk]

Final comment. Checked the motorcycle voltage on the battery with all circuits on, generator not turned on. It was dropping like a rock. Below 11.8 V in 10 seconds. The battery is bad. There should be a load test that put full load on a battery and rates what the rate of did change is. If it's a certain rate in ten seconds, then the battery is bad. No question. Unfortunately it looks like battery chain companies like to play games with the warranty. Where you need to fight them on this.


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[ccbreder]

I can understand B+B trying to save your abused battery as a first step. How did they treat you when you returned the second time?

 

[Goshawk]

" our tester says your battery is good to 330 CCA. It's only rated to 220 CCA. We can not replace this battery under warranty". So end of story. Since I need a motorcycle that works am going to another place that will replace a battery under the warranty year. No questions asked. --- harder to find that. But they still exist.


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[SternWake]

I do not trust CCA testing equipment used at retailers. A real CCA test loads battery at half the CCA rating for 30 seconds. Anything that spits out a number in 5 seconds is a joke.

Everything about the battery in this thread comes down to this statement:

Seems my own failure to use the battery, and failure to put the battery on a stand-by trickle charger (its in a motorcycle and not getting charged enough) caused issues.

All batteries self discharge, Vehicle's alternators and voltage regulators can pretty much NEVER fully charge a battery. The voltage does not go high enough, and the alternator does not spin for long enough. Achieving 100% charged is the realm of a plug in charger, or solar. A battery under 80% charged will develop sulfation on the plates quickly, and the lower the battery goes under 80% and the longer it remains there, the harder they become, and more difficult to ever return into the electrolyte by a proper charging.

A hail mary overcharge heating the battery to 120F might redissolve 5% of the time hardened sulfate. Lost cause.

This battery self discharged, sulfated and lost its capacity and no longer has enough available surface area on the plates to provide the needed current to start the motor. AGM batteries should self discharge no more than 3 to 5% at 75F, flooded batteries can be 15% per month. That is with no Parasitic loads on the battery, and the motorcycle in question could indeed have parasitic loads helping to drain the battery even faster.

A 'rejuvenation' charge, cannot be done in 3 hours. That is a joke. A badly sulfated battery will not respond to one anyway. 3 hours at 15 volts is not even enough to fully charge an abused sulfated battery whose sulfates have hardened. The battery was doomed once it self discharged to a deep level and sat there for X amount of time.

I would hate to be a battery retailer. What other product on earth can be warrantied so easily, when the purchaser can so easily kill it?

Want to kill a battery? Discharge it and let it sit discharged. Any battery's capacity can easily be destroyed within warranty period.

I drove my car into a lake and the dealer would not give me a new one. Those douches!!!!
I discharged then ignored my battery then when it failed to store electricity, the retailer would not warranty it.
Same thing, but that driving a car in to a lake is obviously going to destroy it.

You murdered that poor battery.

Check for a parasitic draw on new battery with a digital multimeter inline set to amps, inbetween battery cable and battery post. Get yourself a maintainer and make sure it holds battery at 13.2v or higher.

Maintainers sometimes can provide no more current than say one amp, but Ideally an 12AH AGM battery would want 4 amps applied until absorption voltage of 14.4 to 14.7v is attained, then held for 3 to 4 hours more( amps will taper naturally).

A maintainer is not a good charger. It might, or might not be able to actually get the battery to 100% charged. i recommend getting it full with a real charger and then plugging in separate maintainer.

Some chargers can maintain a battery. Ideal float/maintenance voltage is temperature dependent and dependent on specific battery. Cold batteries want higher temps. Hot temps over 77f require lower maintenance voltages.

I do not have any product recommendations, but temperature compensated maintainers have a huge advantage over those that are not.

Keep the new battery on a maintainer in between uses, and it will last for 5-7 years easily. Do not do this and you can repeat this questionable warranty process within a year.

Putting a manual charger on a timer for a few minutes each day is also good enough, but at a minimum an unused battery should be recharged to 100% every month, and more often in warm ambient temperatures.

 

[Goshawk]

Will check my maintenance charger to see if it pushes 13.2 V and just take the battery out of the motorcycle until i need it. --- thanks SW. For labeling me a battery murderer. Lol.


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[ccbreder]

I'm a little confused, nothing new. Did you return a second time to B+B?
I have had very good relations with the franchise owner at "my" Batteries plus Bulbs. Sounds like an employee didn't know what he was doing. Measuring a battery as being over it's rating by that much.

 

[Goshawk]

I'm a little confused, nothing new. Did you return a second time to B+B?
I have had very good relations with the franchise owner at "my" Batteries plus Bulbs. Sounds like an employee didn't know what he was doing. Measuring a battery as being over it's rating by that much.

Two employees both said the same stories. If I murdered the battery. Because I did not put a trickle charger on it. And let it sit two months in the motorcycle in Summer. It's my responsibility. Regardless if I have a remainder of six months on the battery.


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[frater secessus]

I picked up a BatteryTender 1.5A smart charger at a garage sale for $5. Works great on my two-wheeled bike and scooters.

 

[ArtW]

I have a Honda Silverwing 600ABS that has been sitting unridden for over 2 months, and sat for over 3 months before that, just went out and it fired right up, so I say it was a crap battery
In fact, if I had a hitch on it, I might borrow a friends motorcycle camper for the RTR lol
The Silverwing, btw, is known to be a bit hard on batteries

 

[SternWake]

Crap batteries do have higher rates of self discharge. and self discharge increases as batteries age too, and of course at higher temperatures.

The best AGMS, Lifeline Northstar and Odyssey have the lowest self discharge. Some of the lesser AGMS, like Universal battery, have self discharge rates barely any better than flooded batteries.

Many smaller cheaper AGMs are simply relabelled Universal batteries, Shipped not so fresh, from China.



When resting, monitor voltage, how fast does it fall between charges? and measure parasitic draw.

Without data, guesses  are useless.

 

[DannyB1954]

When the bike runs what is the voltage to the battery? On a car 13.8 to 14.6 is the acceptable range. Your bike may be undercharging the battery.

 

[Goshawk]

When the bike runs what is the voltage to the battery? On a car 13.8 to 14.6 is the acceptable range. Your bike may be undercharging the battery.

It's in the 13.8 range. It's charging fine.


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