View Full Version : which battery make?
Yuasa, Lucas, Motobatt, Varta or something else?
battery is on last legs me thinks as it was fine on sunday and now not feeling well (alarm started chirping and bike wont start) so instead of looking for a Battery at the last minuet i thought i would pre-empt it and get one ready to go in if this one is indeed burgerd. its on charge as wee speak but i'm not holding my breath that it will be fine.
Lucas one is £30 and being Lucas should be good. Yuasa is £41 and usually the name to go for. Motobatt is £49.50 and to be honest i have never heard of them. Varta is around same price as Yuasa and are a huge battery company.
As important as anything is the cold cranking capability, stated as "CCA" (cold cranking amps).
Each manufacturer will have different ranges of battery capable of different things, for example the Yuasa "YTZ" range has about the best CCA spec of their items.
The YTZ14S is 230A.
YT12A-BS is 175A
(see http://www.yuasabatteries.com/ )
Whatever you consider getting, check the CCA and how it compares to other specs.
Some folk swear by Westco, haven't used them personally, mine all have YTZ Yuasa. I've found Honda dealers often have competitive prices, HondaBlackpool recently had YTZ14S Yuasa batteries on offer in their ebay shop (no connection).
I've seen good short term reports of Motobatt items on other forums, don't know how they live over extended period.
Just stuck a Lucas in the ninja which replaced a yuasa ( likely to be the oem one). There was some blurb about liquid gel technology. Still had to manually fill it up and seal it and then stick on charge. I had a look at halfords bosch range which was £45. I bought the Lucas seeing it was half the cost of the Bosch ( can be procured from all good auction sites :)
speedyandypandy
11-09-12, 02:01 PM
TMS and gel'something' could be gel power... not sure
But what about....Li-Ion :D
http://www.svrider.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113863
Like the part about using dewalt battery packs.
'They say Li-Ion last twice as long as normal batteries, so in one way they about the same price...ish
...'They say Li-Ion last twice as long as normal batteries, so in one way they about the same price...ish
Very dependent on what they mean by "lasts twice as long", they could simply be referring to number of discharge/charge cycles quoted for a battery type, which doesn't really relate to use on a road bike.
having a good look i think the Lucas and Varta are the same battery as they both state 'liquifix' 180 cold start.
just popped battery back in bike and starting just fine but i'll let it go overnight and see 2morra. at 5 years old it might just be on its last legs as it completely drained over the last winter but took a charge and has been fine all year until now.
Funnily the ninja battery that just gave up was prob 5 years old..
Varta is what most of the RSV forum run .
Same on mine as theses hi compression V twins kill them
hhhhmmmm battery might not be 5 years old as it's a Bosch so last owner might have put a new one in when i bought the bike so might be 2 years old.. i'm of to check the MFD.
Dicky Ticker
11-09-12, 04:55 PM
On my second YTZ230 for the Sprint,first one lasted 7 years.
tim8061
11-09-12, 05:37 PM
But what about....Li-Ion :D
http://www.svrider.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113863
Like the part about using dewalt battery packs.
'They say Li-Ion last twice as long as normal batteries, so in one way they about the same price...ish
LiFePO4 are less than half the size/weight so great if you're trying to shave some excess off but they're also a much smaller Ah capacity, so not good if the bike is left standing with an alarm. Fine if you disconnect it (which I do) as they have a mega shelf life. If you flatten one then it's ****'d, you can't recover cells like with a lead/acid.
Loads of threads on other bike forums.
I have a Mottobatt and it's great. Got it of Wemoto for a good price and it had all the connections. My previous Yuasa died and was not that old. I found they were more expensive.
I can only find one Lucas battery and no Varta batteries on ebay. Am I being thick?
Edit: I was being thick.
well looks like its fine and might have been a loose terminal or the alarm. its held a charge overnight and still looooads of cranking power but i might just get another to be on the safe side. i'll pop the alarm back on and see if that drains it.
Just measure the current drain with a multimeter. Make sure everything is off, connect the meter between the earth lead and the battery negative terminal, set to Amps (high scale first, then switch down to mA).
If you see more than a few mA (low single figs) then it is going to cause you issues. Alarms can be hungry in this respect, the makers can be a bit cavalier about this.
Easy check and will either put your mind at rest or make you worry.
it's just a meep-meep tilt sensor alarm with no immobiliser and to date has never given me any problems. i fitted it myself properly with no scotchlock crap or dodgy connectors.
everything seems to be fine so i'm putting it down to a loose terminal as i never bothered checking when i took them off. i installed longer bolts on the terminals to add accessory eyelets but have removed a few and when i went to put the bolts back on i found they fouled and would not screw down properly but felt tight as they were butting up on the casing..
everything is still fine and dandy with no drain on battery after 2 days so i'm guessing it's ok as if it were not it would have drained or lost current by now.
anyone know how long you can store a battery without the acid pack being added?
JGSV650S
13-09-12, 06:29 PM
I just bought a bosch battery from halfords, mainly because my brother has a trade account and i got for £35 , so if ya know any one with one i would do that.
Spanner Man
14-09-12, 07:18 AM
Good morning all.
Over the years I have found that Yuasa batteries are the best by far, & Varta come second.
If your preference is for a YTZ type battery. Such as the YTZ14, which can be fitted to curvy models. A genuine Honda battery, which are Yuasa, retails for approximately £64 inc VAT.
Cheers.
I've just come across this thread (http://www.intruderalert.com/cafe/index.cfm?page=topic&topicID=157926&start=1).
Very good set of tests in my opinion, and interesting results. After the test reports the whole thing descends into a right royal slanging match :smt072 , someone clearly felt their toes were stepped on, but the initial tests are worth a check.
As said in the thread, make your own conclusions.
Interesting. Shame they didn't test the ones we're likely to use over here.
all is fine in the world of Bibio. was out on the bike yesterday and the battery is fine and dandy :-)
so i'm putting it down to either a loose battery terminal or i put the side lights on and never realised it.
garynortheast
17-09-12, 11:36 AM
Glad the battery is ok after all. However, and just for info, I bought a budget priced gel battery for £35 about this time last year and it's still going strong. Spins the engine over nicely even if the bike is sat for a few days without being started, and didn't appear to be affected by the cold weather last winter.
I was unlucky and got a dud yuasa battery, first time in 25 years of biking that has happened to me.
FWIW, I got an Exide battery off Ebay for 35 quid, no problems at all and it has a much higher cranking capacity than a regular oem battery too
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