Bought my bike new in Feb 2008.

So the ORIGINAL  battery has just turned 9, and still seems fine.

Gobsmacked! to be blunt.

Do you sing it a lullaby to sleep every night??

The best I had (on a Jap bike) was eight years and still going strong ... but it was hooked up to a trickle charger every night.

I still use the charger on the HD -- last winter, she was struggling to turn over on the -3--5 degree mornings but using the trickle charger cured that.

2.5 yrs with my street glide

My 09 rocker has the original battery and going strong...... the bike did sit unused for some years but...

Do you trickle charge?

18 months on my breakout - and thats using trickle charger - NOT IMPRESSED!

You do realize you have jinxed the battery Far Canal?
I bought two smoke alarms one time and bought two 9v Duracell batteries
at the same time. A couple of years later one started chirping. The very next day
the other one started chirping. I was impressed by that but I didn't learn from it.
Just last weekend I had to throw out a small Maglite torch cos the AA Eveready batteries had leaked.
Took me an hour trying to salvage the torch but it was fucked.

Same here far canal, 9 years and still going well but I decided not to push my luck and bought a deka powersports and well it does start so much better now so feel happy I did

my battery started to crank a little less powerful last year so I bought a new HD one.......it gave up after 2 1/2 mths. Internal short I beleive as it just clicked the starter and upon cranking (or attempting) voltage dropped to 5v !

I noticed when removing it the top was really warm despite the bike being stone cold so internal short very likely

luckily it was replaced under warranty so am happy with the service I got.

Funny thing is I put the old original back in as the new one died when we were leaving home for a ride and despite not being on the maintainer for 2 1?2 mths fired up straight away.

I now keep the oldy for a 12v compressor for the kids bikes & stuff & trickle it once a week .........it will probably last forever now but the new one really cranks over fast now

Given the size of the batteris in bikes you want to use a low amp device.

Most are 0.8 to 1.2amp for bike batteries. Yes a larger one will charge but a slow, low rate of charge over a period of time is much gentler on the batterys internals

Im convinced the faulty new one I bought was a bit dodgy from the beginnning as I have two tenders (Optimate & CTek) and noticed with the Optimate that if I plugged it in when I got back from a ride the battery would not accept charge until the residual / static voltage dropped below 13v. The Optimate would giove a Red (sulfated) indication but I thought maybe it was just the battery settling in.....then when it refused to start I knew I was right and it was load tested after a 1 hour charge to 160cca....good for a whipper snipper but not a harley

In regards to your 9yr old battery, put the multimeter on it or the tender lead and observe what the voltage drops to when starting the bike.

If it drops below 10.5v then it may be showing signs of wear but hey, 9 years & still going is excellent

last bit of advice, if you do get a new one, put it on the tender for at least 48hrs before installing in the bike so it gets a fulll charge and the absorption process into the plates goes through a few cycles

 

 

 

9 years good going!!

9 years wow thats gold. Mine is 5 years now and still going strong. It's been on a 0.8A C-tek for a year now.

G'day FC