So I last rode the speedy last Thursday, and it has been sat outside, under a cover until this morning. The battery had plenty of power in it last week, but this morning it turned the crank very slowly a couple of times, then gave up. The battery is only six months old. However, all of a sudden it was pretty cold last night, around 4 degrees centigrade. I'll stick it on the optimate later, so I can take the bike to work tomorrow, but is this normal with a relatively new battery?
I would say no, did you have an alarm on ? or leave something switched on ? if not you either have a faulty battery or some sort of charging issue including loose / bad connections. My trophy's typically can sit up to several weeks and still start without problems, battery's were on the bikes when I got them over 12 months ago.
No alarm, but my satnav cradle sits on it, which is hard wired to the battery. Could that be draining it?
Thats a possibility, I would suggest if you have a multimeter with a current ( Amps ) setting that with everything switched off you check the current drain by disconnecting the negative lead at the battery and connect your meter between the -ve lead and the battery terminal and see what the reading is after a couple of minutes. This will tell you if there is a drain on the battery, I would expect around 5 - 10 mA Possibilities are any electrical extras clock, sat nav, heated grips etc
Cheers, I'll give that a go. The only electrical addition made to the bike is the satnav - I'll also see what happens if I disconnect that.
If the sat nav is in the cradle it will take power even when switched off ( I think). Just ordered a new battery for mine, it’s 3 years old and took a while cranking over while I was out. Let it go cold when I got home ,was showing 12.97v which dropped to 11 when cranking but rose to 14.2 at 3000rpm. Time for a new one.
When I leave the bike I always take the device out of its cradle - but the cradle itself stays connected. It might jus drain from there.
Well, I had the battery on the optimate overnight, and it was happily blinking green this morning. Put it in and started straight away. Will have to check possible current drains at some point. I have disconnected the satnav though - see if that makes a difference.
Cheers. I'll have to buy a multimeter first - it's just that I don't get on with electrickery - I treat wires like garden hoses, there might still be something in them!
My battery failed on Mon morning 4c temp and working on the bike drained it Replacing with a Lithium battery turn ing up today
Mine has been worthless from day 1. Yes I have an alarm. If I turn the alarm on, the battery drains within days. But even without the alarm it lasts about a week. My other bike is a German (yes, with alarm) and ‘keine Probleme’ there. So it may be Triumph batteries are not the best.
I can't see why a satnav cradle would drain the battery without a live satnav in it. Triumph use Yuasa batteries which are generally regarded as top notch. I would take your bikes to a Triumph dealer and ask them to check the batteries under duty of care.
I replaced mine when it started doing the same thing, hardly started on cold mornings and wouldn't re start on a stall, it was fairly new according to the previous owner, put a higher CCA one in and its been fine ever since! If you have a halfords trade card you can get yuasas at quite a discount
I put a new yuasa battery in in March. Since I disconnect the satnav cradle when not in use the problem is gone. Must have leaked current somehow.
Piggyback your satnav to the horn then it’ll only get power when your ignition is on, live to live and neg to earth, not the horn neg
Thanks Rich. Dealer said batteries only have a 6 month warrenty ( I had the issue from day 1) but is willing to check for power consuming accessories. Guess I’ll have to do that than..
For what it's worth, I added the OEM Triumph mount for a Zumo to my 2013 Trophy SE. A few weeks later, I had a weak battery. In my case, I wasn't careful enough when I routed the wires. One of them chaffed through the insulation after a few trips. I had to take everything apart, shrink wrap the wire and route it in a better location. No more problems after that.
I have a satnav cradle hard wired on my Tiger so it is permanently live, but have never had any problems with it draining current, even after a couple of weeks. (satnav not left on bike obviously).
I have recently put in a Lithium Ion battery on my Speed Triple, very high CCA, very light And only double the price of a normal battery Well £85 of Amazon for the 12 version Will be putting in an accessory switch so heater grips, volt meter, USB charging ports are only live when I need them
