Oh the joys of a Wal-Mart battery are so many, it is hard to count them all ....

Wal-Mart is always open  Sundays, holidays -- it don't matter

Wal-Mart stocks both a 14-xx and 12-xx battery, the two sizes I use in my two bikes

The batteries are packaged dry, which means I get a fresh battery every time

The Everstart batteries are pressurized sealed with nitrogen gas, so the plates are totally oxide free

They put enough acid in the acid pack to fill the battery up

(yes Virginia, I go beyond the full mark and evenly split the available acid which gives me lots of extra time before having to add water -- an advantage you should take advantage of too) 

They put a battery puke tube on the bike for a purpose you know, and no, the extra acid does not go out the puke tube, it sits in the battery doing its job)

The Wal-Mart battery lasts just as long as any other motorcycle battery
(and by using the extra acid you actually get longer life because you don't ever run it bone dry)


and lastly, it costs about half as much as a motorcycle shop battery


(NOTE:  you may have to fiddle with your  cables a bit and run the long puke tube over the top of the battery and down the B. box channel to use a universal battery, but once you do that you can always find a Wal-Mart in any decent sized town while traveling, so you can always find a cheap battery if you need one)

I've never had a problem with them either. You don't have to do this, but put a full charge on that sucker before you use it. That helps to get it off to a good start! (pun intended)

Yes, the acid pack will put the largest battery between the lines -- it provides a little extra acid for all the smaller batteries.

And yep, always charge a new battery at NO MORE THAN 2 AMPS until it bubbles good (that's the battery's way of telling you it's full of electrons and the hydrometer would read "full charge" if you owned one and actually used it)

$30 from Wal-Mart -- remember to take the old one with you or they charge you a $9 core charge

(don't ask me why -- I dunno.  Jest give them the old battery and you don't have to understand it)

No cheap?

No charging bubbles?

No cheating on the acid?

No getting over on the easy local availability and low low price?


 (sob)


No joy .......  


 

.....  and now I won't even bother telling you about resurrecting my obsolete 1992 XV 535 from stator regulator rectifier death by using a modern 2006 year model $19.00 (7 wire) gotten off a wrecked 1000cc GSXR ebay unit.

From dead dead dead obsolete can't get parts for it to a nice exact steady charging voltage of 13.32 volts for only $19.00 and some soldering.


.... them modern electronics, don't ya gotta love 'um?



 joy comes in small packages as you get older and poorer

   
   

My Wal-mart battery lasted a whopping 4 months. On a 3/4 amp charger for the last day and a half, I now have a yellow headlight, no other lights. It'll come back, I guess. It just started to fizz an hour ago.

The local sopuki stealership wants $109 (plus tax) for the stock battery. The indie shop gets $70 (plus tax) for a 14LA2. Wal-mart? $42 plus the governor's cut.

I had to notch my battery box for the LA2, the cables were too short to reroute. No biggie, side panel pretty much hides it. Now if I could just relocate it to that shelf off the exhaust hanger bracket and lose the chrome lump (I despise chrome)...

Once again, Bill is wrong. 3/4 amp IS a charger - just a low rate charger. That just means it will take longer.