Battery playing up?

[ThreeDawg]

Went to start up my 1100 yesterday, and the engine wouldn't turn over, just the flat battery grrrrr and the clock reset ot midnight. This is a bit odd as it was just taken off the C-tek charger.

Pulled out the NOCO jump starter and off we went, no more issues.

Suspecting a failing battery or perhaps some sort of electrical drain other than the clock I left the bike overnight, but today the battery was still showing about 13.4 volts or so today. Switching on the lights for a couple of minuted got it down to about 12.3V, but hitting the starter (successfully this time) the volts showed about 10.5, quickly rising to about 14 with the engine running, so pretty normal as I understand it. Battery is an Endurolast AGM, about 2 years old.

If the battery wouldn't hold a charge, or the voltage collapsed under starting load I would think shagged battery, This has happened once before, exactly the same. Does this sound like an intermittant failure inside the battery? All connections are corrosion free and tight. Off to Turkey at the end of August, and haven't got room for the NOCO....

 

[Pete.]

I would suspect the charger before anything. Try leaving it standing for a few days and see if the voltage degrades significantly.

 

[ynotbiker]

Sticking starter motor don’t ask how I know got two batteries now.

 

[ThreeDawg]

I would suspect the charger before anything. Try leaving it standing for a few days and see if the voltage degrades significantly.

Will do.

Sticking starter motor don’t ask how I know got two batteries now.

That did occur to me (too late). Unfortunately I didn't check the voltage before connecting up the jump starter. Clock did zero immediately though, indicating a desperate lack of volts.

 

[Paul Young]

I’d suspect the battery has a couple of degraded cells that can’t support a high load, so voltage drops below 9v and nowt happens except the growl and zeroing of the clock. The Noco overcomes this where a sticky starter would likely still struggle to fire.

 

[ThreeDawg]

I guess a belt and braces approach would be a new battery and starter motor. The starter has done 92000 miles after all.

 

[ynotbiker]

Sure this is a cargo starter good quality.

 

[Neil W]

Put a meter across the terminals of a fully charged battery and see what the voltage is, then see what it drops to when you hit the srarter button.
On a fully charged battery a drop to below say 8 or 9 volts usually indicates a failed battery

 

[ThreeDawg]

Put a meter across the terminals of a fully charged battery and see what the voltage is, then see what it drops to when you hit the srarter button.
On a fully charged battery a drop to below say 8 or 9 volts usually indicates a failed battery

Yeah, that's what I did - went down to about 10.5V then immediately back up once the engine started.

Both times this has happened the bike was fresh out of the garage and just off the charger. No problems otherwise.

Can't imagine the Ctek is doing anything funny, but I will reconnect it and check the battery again to rule it out.

 

[ThreeDawg]

CTek charged at 14.7V (correct for an AGM battery), floated at 13.6. No parasitic drain. Pfftt. Will get a new gel battery and starter motor and hope for the best unless anyone can think of anything else I should check.

 

[Wrigsby1]

CTek charged at 14.7V (correct for an AGM battery), floated at 13.6. No parasitic drain. Pfftt. Will get a new gel battery and starter motor and hope for the best unless anyone can think of anything else I should check.

Try one at a time first and I'd go battery 1st every time... I'm not a believer in long term use of maintenance chargers as I've heard too many times of batteries still failing... So many bikes I've bought that have been intermittently used and need a new battery... All of them charged up and looked ok but still were a PIA...

 

[ThreeDawg]

Try one at a time first and I'd go battery 1st every time... I'm not a believer in long term use of maintenance chargers as I've heard too many times of batteries still failing... So many bikes I've bought that have been intermittently used and need a new battery... All of them charged up and looked ok but still were a PIA...

I had slated the bike for a new battery this year for the upcoming Turkey/Greece/Morocco trip, with a new starter as preventitive maintenance (it gets a lot of that) for the 2026 India/Nepal/Tibet/SE Asia/Australia planned trip, but there's no harm in bringing that forward.

The battery has done pretty hard yakka on the previous South America and South Africa/Namibia trips, so I can't complain, although it would get even more use if I was commuting on the bike. I'm just puzzled as to why twice, about a year apart it has come off the charger and just refused to play ball. Guess I'll never know.

 

[Wrigsby1]

I had slated the bike for a new battery this year for the upcoming Turkey/Greece/Morocco trip, with a new starter as preventitive maintenance (it gets a lot of that) for the 2026 India/Nepal/Tibet/SE Asia/Australia planned trip, but there's no harm in bringing that forward.

The battery has done pretty hard yakka on the previous South America and South Africa/Namibia trips, so I can't complain, although it would get even more use if I was commuting on the bike. I'm just puzzled as to why twice, about a year apart it has come off the charger and just refused to play ball. Guess I'll never know.

Again it's just my theory about long term use of maintenance chargers taking batteries down... I've virtually neverhad a prob on bikes in use if I've not done something stupid....

 

[djgsa]

I had a similar problem with my 1250gsa. BMW swapped out the battery, and it seems to be ok now. I've bought a Noco booster anyway, that I'll just keep in the topbox just in case.

 

[ThreeDawg]

Just to follow up, I fitted a new battery (a Fulbat gel with a claimed 300+ CCA rating in place of the Enduroline AGM one) as well as a new starter motor. The bike now starts noticably quicker, and I haven't seen an ABS reset fault since. I will not be using the battery tender.

The old battery was only 2 1/2 years old, but clearly failing, and I am wondering if something funny was happening with the tender, but the voltage drop when starting using the new battery is much less. Hopefully I can make this one last longer.

 

[Buckingham]

I need a new battery for my '97 R1100GS - very sluggish turning over & ABS not initialising.

The battery choice is endless ! Anyone got any recent recommendations please ?

TIA John

 

[Paul Young]

Tayna.co.uk
Check their website first, but check the total cost with delivery, then look for the same battery on their eBay store where delivery is free. Choose whichever method is then cheapest.

 

[jetjock]

Sticking starter motor don’t ask how I know got two batteries now.

Or too much carbon on the brushes !

 

[Buckingham]

Or too much carbon on the brushes !

Yeah I need to check that out too, thanks. Although because the ABS does not initialise, I'm pretty sure the battery is end of life.

Tayna.co.uk
Check their website first, but check the total cost with delivery, then look for the same battery on their eBay store where delivery is free. Choose whichever method is then cheapest.

Thanks, yes I've used Tayna lots of times before but you're right, they also sell with free delivery on eBay. I really need to know the measurements of the correct battery before ordering though. Tayna list a lot of batteries for the R1100GS and they're not all the same physical size.

 

[Paul Young]

Yeah I need to check that out too, thanks. Although because the ABS does not initialise, I'm pretty sure the battery is end of life.

Thanks, yes I've used Tayna lots of times before but you're right, they also sell with free delivery on eBay. I really need to know the measurements of the correct battery before ordering though. Tayna list a lot of batteries for the R1100GS and they're not all the same physical size.

Your registration should filter it down to those that fit. The reason for the difference is probably down to whether an ABS unit is fitted and whether this reduces the space available.