Advice/Opinions on a battery issue!

Greeting,

New to the Forum and association. Thought I'd ask for some advice/opinions on a little problem. I just picked up a used 2005 F650GS in December. Had a few problems getting the bike started. Not worried because really couldn't drive any where due to the weather(Toronto, Canada). I bought a BMW Battery Tender and charged the battery. Bike started......no problems. About two weeks ago I started the bike again, no problem again!
This past Friday we had an amazing day(10 C). I decided I would take the bike out for a ride............bike wouldn't start. Lights, horn, display all worked! All I got was a wrrrring sound when I tried to start the bike. What confuses me is that the tender has been hooked up the whole time, the day was really warm! The bike is in great condition and was purchased from a motorcycle shop.

I will assume that the battery is the original.....also it has factory installed alarm system that confuses me as well...........Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated....especially before I go out and purchase a new battery.

Andrew

Battery seems to be 5 or 6 years old. Buy a new one and save yourself some grief down the road.

Ralph Sims

My 1st guess would be the battery is bad. It has enough juice to light the lights,etc but not enought to turn the starter motor which is something several hundred watts.

The wrrring sound leave one open to several possibilities.
If the wrrring is the starter motor turning, the bendix(throw out gear which attached the starter motor to the fly wheel...may not be engaging.
2nd guess ps this may also be caused by a weak battery beyond the bendix being stuck/bad...BMW may call it something else but the core function is the same.

3rd less likely because it does not sound like wrrring but more of a clicking is the starter selinoid. It is the swith which takes the low current starter push button power into a big swithc which turns on the starte motor. Some time this function and the bendix above are all in one package...not sure on the 650 motor

The wrring could also be a fuel pump...which leads back to the first guess.

If it were mine, and i did not know the age of the battery, I would replace it. Doing so has the best chance /odds of solving the starting problem....and if id does not fix it you still have a new battery when you find the real problem.

165869 said:

I decided I would take the bike out for a ride............bike wouldn't start. Lights, horn, display all worked! All I got was a wrrrring sound when I tried to start the bike.

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Like a mechanical wrrrring sound?

Without testing, I am guessing, but your battery is probably toast. The dealer should give you a new one. Check the date code on the battery.

What voltage does the battery measure? Do you have a DMM? Take a battery voltage reading a day after you disconnect the battery charger.

Check the output on the tender as well... mine failed after only two months. The seller replaced it, but it played hell with me while I tried to figure out why my battery wouldn't stay charged.

I figured a new tender couldn't be bad. You did keep the receipt ...

Welcome to the Forum Andrew,

I am going to move this over to the Thumper Forum for single cylinder models like yours...hang on. Lot's more detailed response to model specific questions usually, though we all have had a battery question or problem at least once

That said, Your model bike also still has a flooded cell battery...the one on our '07 F650 needed water topped when left on a charger for long times, it also had a charging issue that fried a few batteries before the dealer found an issue when it was in warranty. ...it is not the easiest battery to top off and view levels as it hides under the "fake" gas tank.

And as mentioned, it is prob time for a new battery being an '05 and you not knowing the history of maintenance on it.

Hi Andrew, welcome to the forum. Your getting some good suggestions on your problem. A couple things I can add is if in your area, there has been run-off from snow melt it can cause a similar problem if it gets into the starter area and freezes. If you can get to the starter and listen to make sure it is the starter, you can try tapping on it to see if you can get it to engage. If the lights really dim out when you hit the starter button it's another good sign of a weak battery. Hope this helps, Gary

If you take your old battery to an auto parts store most of them can do a load test on it to determine if it is bad. If you do get a new battery spend the few extra dollars for a sealed one (AGM). Make sure your battery cables are TIGHT, loose cables are very common on the F650s and can cause all sort of strange problems.

Railbender said:

If you take your old battery to an auto parts store most of them can do a load test on it to determine if it is bad. If you do get a new battery spend the few extra dollars for a sealed one (AGM). Make sure your battery cables are TIGHT, loose cables are very common on the F650s and can cause all sort of strange problems.

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Railbender is right on. One other suggestion: whenever you buy a used bike, ALWAYS replace the battery; unless the p.o. has a receipt that is less than one year old.

I bought a new battery at Napa for my 07 for 99.00 AGM model numberETX15L they may still be on sale, reg. price is 140.00 I think.

It is a tight fit without battery tray mods but does fit in. Just search the FAQ's at the chain gang for the tray mods ,I ended up doing them just because I like to play around.

Riding in hot weather I was always checking the liquid level with the original, now I don't worry.
Cal

My battery was replaced in the fall one year and failed the next summer. I have a number of friends with similar stories of batteries lasting only about a year.

I have had a number of people tell me that if you get 3 years out of a battery you are doing great. A few others have told me about 5 year old batteries that are still doing fine. The OEM battery for my bike is a YUASA, and the warranty is only 6 months, so that tells you the manufacturer does not have a lot of confidence the battery will last a lot longer.

I have a BMW maintenance charger that I use once every two weeks when the bike is being ridden every day and I leave it on the charger when it is not going to be ridden every day. The charger literature claims to extend the life of the battery, so I am willing to give it a try.

Fortunate thing is the OEM YUASA battery is available at Interstate Batteries for around $60, which is really inexpensive compared to a lot of bike batteries. I have thought about replacing next time with an AGM battery. I have heard some good things about them. The main goal there is that it takes at least half an hour of removing panels to get the battery out of the bike to top off the water, and an AGM battery would eliminate that chore every few months.

Thanks

Wow what a response for my first posting. Thanks to all. I'm start fresh and replace the battery.............3 more weeks until I get the bike on the road......can't wait!

Cheers!

gblawler said:

The OEM battery for my bike is a YUASA, and the warranty is only 6 months, so that tells you the manufacturer does not have a lot of confidence the battery will last a lot longer.

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YUASA has a lot of confidence in their batteries; what they don't have a lot of confidence in is the user/operator...and rightfully so.

gblawler said:

I have thought about replacing next time with an AGM battery.

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They are fine as long as they don't get exposed to overcharging. They require far more care on the part of the charging system.

BTW, my so-called old tech flooded lead acid "seasonal" batteries fail in the 9th year...the car batteries have lasted 16+ years; present car battery is in its 12th year. Look after them and make sure the charging system is up to spec and they last.

GlobalRider said:

BTW, my so-called old tech flooded lead acid "seasonal" batteries fail in the 9th year...the car batteries have lasted 16+ years; present car battery is in its 12th year. Look after them and make sure the charging system is up to spec and they last.

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That is encouraging. I bought the BMW Maintenance Charger with the hope that it would extend the battery life; they claim it will. I also bought an Argus Battery Bug monitor with the hope that it would give me an early warning before the battery fails. The last battery failed while I was riding the bike which was inconvenient. The current battery is only 1 year and 5 months old, so too early to tell.

gblawler said:

That is encouraging. I bought the BMW Maintenance Charger with the hope that it would extend the battery life; they claim it will.

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They all do, but most battery chargers are marginal. I think the BMW charger is made by Battery Tender. They're not my choice for various reasons.

gblawler said:

I also bought an Argus Battery Bug monitor with the hope that it would give me an early warning before the battery fails.

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I'd have to test one to see if they are any good. There are many fancy shop testers on the market that claim they can test a battery; fact is, there are only two real tests, a load test and a capacity test, and none of those toys do that.

GlobalRider said:

I'd have to test one to see if they are any good. There are many fancy shop testers on the market that claim they can test a battery; fact is, there are only two real tests, a load test and a capacity test, and none of those toys do that.

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Here is a link to their site for the product I have:
http://www.argusanalyzers.com/index.php?id=44

Here is a link to an explanation of their "CrankCheck" http://www.argusanalyzers.com/index.php?id=51

The way they describe the Battery Bug is that it performs a load test on the battery every time you start the bike.

Let me know what you think.

There was another reason I bought this. I use a lot of Gerbing gear and the Battery Bug has a feature where if the voltage drops below 12 volts for more than 1 minute, it beeps and flashes an icon on the display. It also displays the voltage, but the alarm feature is better than a simple volt meter because I don't have to watch the meter. That is the theory anyway.

gblawler said:

The way they describe the Battery Bug is that it performs a load test on the battery every time you start the bike.

Let me know what you think.

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By definition, that thing does not do a "load test".

There is this nifty looking battery charger on the market called "Save A Battery". It supposedly does a "load test". The poor member/business owner on another forum pushing this fancy smancy battery charger as "the last battery charger you will ever own"; I took him apart with the questions I asked...to which he had no answers...he had to contact the company who were no better.

By the way, it load tests at 20W...wow...a turn signal bulb does that. LOL

I don't take any battery charger manufacturer seriously who does not publish full electrical specs I can verify in the lab.

All you really need...

This is what I have on my motorcycle...


And car...

GlobalRider said:

By the way, it load tests at 20W...wow...a turn signal bulb does that. LOL

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From reading their website in the past, I was under the impression that what it does is monitor the voltage, infer the bike is being started when the voltage drops below some threshold, then monitors the lowest voltage the battery drops to during starting. It then infers the remaining battery life based on how low the voltage drops. What is your opinion of that approach?

By the way, when my last battery failed while I was riding the bike, I took the battery back to Interstate Batteries and they performed a load test on it and said the battery was fine. I did not believe that and bought a new one anyway. When the old battery was in the bike, I didn't even get any instrument lights when I turned the key on. The new battery worked fine.

gblawler said:

By the way, when my last battery failed while I was riding the bike, I took the battery back to Interstate Batteries and they performed a load test on it and said the battery was fine.

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Maybe the issue was elsewhere; maybe with the motorcycle. Maybe they didn't do a proper load test. Maybe the battery had no capacity. And if it died while riding, I have to wonder why.

Battery Charging...

GlobalRider said:

Maybe the issue was elsewhere; maybe with the motorcycle. Maybe they didn't do a proper load test. Maybe the battery had no capacity. And if it died while riding, I have to wonder why.

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Do not over look the bikes ground/negative wire. a battery may seem fine out of the bike. In the bike it is part of the system. Follow the black to frame/engine and see if it is secure/tight/snug. Check the Chain Gang at F650.com.