My battery died and I tryed to find a Oddessy battery , and no luck. Is there one that will fit the F658gs? I have one in my R1150gs and it works very well. The factroy one lasted 6 months.
My battery died and I tryed to find a Oddessy battery , and no luck. Is there one that will fit the F658gs? I have one in my R1150gs and it works very well. The factroy one lasted 6 months.
As far as I can tell, there is not a drop-in replacement from Oddessy for these bikes... and I agree, many of the factory Exides seem to have issues.
Unless something new develops, when mine goes I'll probably get one of these:
http://f800depot.com/index.php?main_...roducts_id=492
I know Rob (the guy that runs the site) and if he says its good I pretty much figure it's good
Jim
WESTCO batteries are like the Energizer Bunnie ...
They just keep going and going and ... going.
If your BMW battery only lasted six months, take it back - it has a year warranty. I'm on my third replacement in two years! I just make sure I've checked the fluid levels and keep it charged - give it the ball test - especially before a trip. If it's a bad battery, I get it replaced. So far so good.
On my old F650 I got a battery from Auto Palace (or one of those chains) - lasted 3 years so far. I'll check the chargeability (ball test) before I put the bike away for the winter and again in the spring.
Muriel
BMW MOA Secretary
'07 F650 '12 F650 twin
Running on One Cylinder - except when running on two
I would of taken it back, but my dealer is 140 miles from my place. If I was going to get another battery that only lasted 6 months, it was not worth the effort. I put in a maintance free flooded battery for just over $50. It is working just fine now.
I wish I had gotten the Wesco. My new battery is strugling to start the bike after setting for three days. It took three trys to day to start. It would come up on compression and just set there. Finaly it rolled over and started.Originally Posted by PAULBACH
My original factory-installed glass-mat battery failed within months of new bike purchase. BMW replaced it under warranty, and the dealer wisely installed a standard BMW sealed battery rather than another of BMW's troublesome glass-mat batteries.
Fred
My F800ST has ~25,000 miles on it and is headed into its 4th season. No battery problems whatsoever (probably just jinxed myself). Should I replace the battery before my next trip, which will be about 3000 miles?
The reasons I'm wondering are that 1) the vibration hasn't killed it yet, and 2) I'm not worried about normal cycling because I keep a battery tender on it when I'm home, which is about 85% of the bike's life.
Now that I've taken the time to write this down, I think you're going to tell me that it would be cheap insurance to replace it. Which reminds me, I need to look into roadside assistance now that the warranty has expired.
Thanks in advance.
Dave
'92 K75S, '08 F800ST
Cedar Falls, IA
If the battery is performing fine, there is no need to change it. Batteries give warning when they are approaching end of life. On one of my old bikes, a 2004 Vstrom lite, now owned by a buddy, he is still running the same battery. I have had a few bikes for 4 years or more, no battery issues. My preventative maintenance was/is a OptiMate battery charger to maintain the battery whenever the bike is parked. I now have a F800gs. Four of my friends have the same bike (we imagine one day we will go on a long adventure ride I suppose !!) and some, including mine have battery issues; the battery seems to drain within two months. Does not seem consistent though, one friend never maintains his battery and has no issue. I think the bike's system (canbus) is causing it, no other bike I've had would drain so quickly. I keep the battery fully charged by keeping my OptiMate battery charger hooked up. I recently got one of the new versions that connects through the 12V socket, it's an Optimate 4 DUAL PROGRAM. No worries it keeps on charging by itself, now going for a few weeks, crank the bike in the cold of Canada and it fires up without problems. Check out smartchargers.com where I got it.
Maybe here is the solution to all the problems.
http://www.batterystuff.com/batteries/motorcycle/
No lead so the kids can play now. Check out the lithium iron phosphate
battery.
http://www.batterystuff.com/batterie...18A1-BS12.html
this is listed as a very strong battery. NOT CHEAP.
Last edited by roybarnes; 02-24-2011 at 06:55 PM.
Thanks for the help. The reason for posting in the F twins section is that there have been a few sudden battery deaths reported over at F800.org, so I'm trying to figure out if they are early failures, which would mean I shouldn't worry.
Also, the battery on my K75 suddenly failed once. I wonder if always keeping my bikes on Battery Tenders at home masks the general degradation we are use to seeing.
And thanks for the batterystuff.com site. I couldn't find a battery to fit the F800ST. I tinkered around a little and lead based batteries kept popping up.
Dave
'92 K75S, '08 F800ST
Cedar Falls, IA
I had a failure on my F800ST at about 7K and another at about 20K.
Steve, was the second one at 13K on the battery? And do you know what brand(s) they were? I'm thinking Exide provided the OEM battery.
Thanks!
Dave
'92 K75S, '08 F800ST
Cedar Falls, IA
[QUOTE=MartinRSA;653859]If the battery is performing fine, there is no need to change it. Batteries give warning when they are approaching end of life. QUOTE]
Not all batteries give warning prior to failure. There have been a number of exide OEM batteries in f800 ST and S that have experienced Sudden Death Battery Syndrome SDBS. My battery on an '09 F 800 ST was less than a year old, less than 10,000 miles, always hooked up to a trickle charger and one day just did not start. There were absolutley NO warning signs. If you do a search of the F 800 forums you will see a lot of folks that have have similar experiences. My battery was replaced under warrantee by BMW.
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