It completely depends on your charging and maintaining practises. A battery that is kept fully charged at all times will last many years. One that is 1/2 dead 1/2 the time will not last long. Sounds like yours is somewhere inbetween. Don't even think  the motorcycle itself will take care of the charging needs, altho under frequent and longer riding conditions, it will.

Ramsforever wrote on 10/12/09 at 06:30:39:

Pull it out and check the liquid level.  If low, I am betting it is, add distilled water and put it on a trickle charger for a day, not more than one amp.
If that doesn't revive it, you may need a new battery.

phelonius

How long we ride it after each start matters. If it only runs a few minutes & takes some cranking to get going, its never geting fully charged.

A couple more comments. The self-discharge rate of a battery is influenced by temperature. At low temperatures, the self-discharge rate is lower, so in winter the problem lessens. Older batteries are more prone to self-discharge than new ones.

The float charger may, or may not, extend battery life. It will indeed keep the battery charged, by replenishing the internal discharge current. Depending on the charger's float voltage and the battery's internal chemistry, it will also likely cause some electrolyte loss from water dissociation. "Sealed" batteries are supposed to capture the gasses resulting from dissociation and allow them to recombine, preventing water loss. If you use a float charger you will need to keep an eye on the electrolyte level. The constant current from the float charger can also aggravate internal corrosion in the battery. Your best bet, probably, is to use a battery maintainer of some sort, but put it on a timer so it only operates a few hours per week. Even better, run the maintainer for one day per month.

My limited experience: I have a four-amp battery maintainer. I connected it to my boat battery, in the garage. The battery is a Group 24 marine starting battery, so it is considerably larger than a motorcycle battery. Over a period of about a month the water level in the battery drops by about an eighth of an inch.

Was checking prices of new batterys and OMG  

Why more expensive than a car battery?

Ramsforever wrote on 10/13/09 at 11:50:04:




A couple of guesses.

It costs a certain number of dollars to run a factory/ production line.
IF there isnt sufficient demand to run that production enough, then in order to pay for the equipment & maintenance, they have to charge more per unit manufactured. Given sufficient demand, they could get the price down, unless the demand crested an amount that required more new equipment, space, etc.
Point is, if demand is quite a bit less than production capacity, each item is often more, just to keep the business afloat.


Tolerances. Making a motorcycle battery must surely require manufacturing at, not only closer tolerances, but the plates must be thinner, yet, these batteries have to be able to handle the vibration & rough ride a bike delivers. I suspect there are supports for the plates built into the case that dont exist on automotive batteries.


I wouldnt be surprised to find that M/C battery manufacturers are required to build a battery that doesnt go dumping fluid just because the bike got dropped. & the battery needs to survive that bump, too.

2 amp charger is good I would leave it on over night.