Battery replacement

Replacement Batteries

My Voyager is a 2012 with the original battery. Since I tend to start thinking about a replacement after three years, I did some research and talked to some local battery dealers (places that sell nothing but batteries and chargers).

AGM's (Acid Glass Matt) have definite advantages due to no liquid acid to spill and less corrosive fume venting. They are also normally happy with the voltages applied for charging by most stock motorcycle electrical systems. Downside is that they are just as prone to sulfation as wet cell lead acid batteries. And, once sulfited, are more difficult to "desulfite" with the normal means. I have chargers that have a desulfation mode. My son's BMW AGM battery lost capacity. I was able to recover a little of the capacity with my charger, but not enough to really do much good. My charger has been able to recover nearly full capacity on wet cell batteries.

My local battery dealer has more specialized (an expensive) recovery equipment. They will attempt a recovery, which is free if it doesn't work, but $5 if it works. They were able to get full recovery on the AGM battery.

Bottom line is that whether you go with a wet cell or AGM replacement, invest in a quality Battery Tender, and you will be likely to double the life of your battery by eliminating sulfation.

As for lithium batteries, there is a lot of information pointing to their need for a specific voltage charging range. They are supposedly very intolerant of higher than specified voltage. If I was going to invest in a lithium battery, I would actually measure the voltage applied to my battery when running at speed and with normal loads applied, and compare it with the lithium battery manufacturers specs.

This may sound really silly, but I do this voltage measuring on all my bikes occasionally by hooking a special set of meter leads to the battery and going for a ride with my VOM meter in view to test the health of my charging system. I really miss my old Concours that had a voltage readout on the multifunction display. It would be nice if the Voyager had this as well. I am thinking about buying and installing an auxiliary volt meter some time in the future.