[whynot]

I have a 2006 Burgman 650 with about 3000 miles. I bought this last year at 1000 miles. The seller had installed a new battery. I rode until mid October last year. This winter the scooter has been in the garage with a full tank of gas + Seafoam. I started the scooter once in December and rode it around the block (1/2 mile) and had it running on center stand for about 20 minutes. I started it again in February and rode it around the block and after getting back into the garage, the scooter would not start again. There is no sign of electrical power and the symptoms are similar to a dead battery. Yesterday I tried again and no luck - same story. I put the battery on trickle charger and it very quickly came to " charged" status. I disconnected the battery and checked the voltage and see that it has 12.8 volts. I reconnected the battery and still not able to start. Still the same problem of absolutely no electrical power. One weird thing though - when connected to the trickle charger and I turn on the ignition, the headlight comes up weakly, horn does not work nor can I get the starter going. Without the trickle charger it seems dead.

I confirmed that my trickle charger is working correctly for it charged the dead battery on my Goldwing without any problem.

Any suggestions or ideas why I am having this trouble? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Buffalo]

Sounds like the battery has gone bad. Try jump starting it and see what happens.

 

[whynot]

Hi Buffalo, As suggested, I tried jump starting the Burgman from my Honda accord, but no luck. The lights on the Burgman were at full bright from the car battery. When I press the starter button, the engine cranks for a couple of seconds giving a whining sound and then stops. While disconnecting the cables, I noticed that that they were hot at the car battery end. Any other suggestion?

 

[bikerdoc]

experienced something similar last year on my AN650K3 exec., in NZ. Had a fairly new battery less than a year old Motobatt brand, anyways the bike was parked for a while as I am often between Asia, OZ and NZ. During last May 2012 I found the scoot to be experiencing some starting pains, even though I'd been using the scoot for a week or two on my return to NZ without any difficulty. It started fine each time, I used it which was daily riding anything from between 100km-1000km+ in a day (I racked up 10000km in 2 months). Anyways, after a time the scoot developed a starting problem, pretty much as a flat battery and had to jump start it several times, once under-way all good. After a couple of days of this though, the scoot would start, but then the battery was not keeping a charge. I found myself stranded at one point having ridden away from families home in Hawkes Bay and turning the scoot of at one stop too many. Wouldn't start. Battery dead. Thankfully I have NZAA membership so called them up and they sent a mobile mechanic out to jump start the scoot, he also checked the battery with a tester and found it to be bad, but said to double check with a sparky. I got myself a trickle charger and used that for a week or so, but the situation deteriorated to the point where I swung by an auto-electrician ("sparky") who checked the voltages coming out of the alternator/generator side of the equation. All good there. He checked the battery and found it was bad. Had a new Motobatt sent from Auckland overnight, as the sparky's price was a bit rich. Fitted it myself. No problems since.

Get a new battery.

 

[whynot]

After seeing the response from Buffalo, I thought - "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it has got be a duck". So I kinda agreed to the idea of a bad battery. However if battery was the culprit, then the jump start should have worked. Since the jumpstart did not help, I am not fully convinced on the bad battery now. The 3 things against a bad/dead battery theory are

1) I have confirmed that the battery is only 1 year old and I have put only 1500 miles on it.
2) The battery has a full voltage of 12.8 volts when checking thru a voltmeter.
3) A jump start attempt from a car brought up full electrcal power, but failed to start the Burgman.

If I do not get any other suggetstions, I will try a new battery in a day or two.

 

[Buffalo]

You might have a loose or corroded battery cable connection at the starter. You will have to take off some bodywork to chech that.

 

[whynot]

Thank you guys for your support and suggestions. Today I bought a new battery. Before installing the new battery, with the old battery still in its housing, I tried to jump start again from my car. The lights once again came on bright, the horns worked fine, but the burgman would not start. The starter would not even whine. The battery once again showed voltage of 13.8 volts.

I then went ahead and removed the old battery and installed a fully charged new battery and the scooter started without any problem. So suggestion from both Buffalo and biker doc was correct. :thumbup:

Lesson learnt is that if the battery is bad, it has to be completely removed from the circuit for the rest of the circuit to work well. I guess I need to get into electrical 101 class.

Just to play it safe, I plan to monitor the battery voltage everyday for the next 30 days to see if there a major drain anywhere in the circuit. Don't want to buy a battery every few months. For now, "All is well that ends well". This forum has once again proved to be a great support site. :cheers: