Dead TMAX Battery

Today, I encountered a problem I wasn't expecting with my TMAX but, I was thankfully prepared for. The last couple days, the battery on my TMAX had been acting kind of strange. It seemed like it was low on power but, it would start the bike. However, this morning, the battery wouldn't kicked the engine over and quickly died.

Back in July 2012 (ref my July 12, 2011 post), I managed to kill the battery on my TMAX by leaving the power on for 10 minutes but not running the engine. I ended up having to get the bike towed to Heyser Cycle where the battery was replaced. While there, Heyser recommended I get a fused ring terminal with quick disconnect hooked up to my TMAX's battery so, if the battery ever died again, I could hook a battery charger up to the ring terminal and re-charge the battery. They apparently recommended having this done on all the motorbikes they sold. I agreed to have it done though it ended up costing me over $100.

Today, that money turned out to well spent. I remembered the terminal they hooked up to the battery as well as the Battery Tender Junior they sold me for $40 (lists for $39.95 on their website: http://batterytender.com/battery-tender-junior-12v-at-0-75a.html). I broke out the re-charger, hooked it up to my TMAX and waited to see if it would work. To my relief, it did.

The Battery Tender Junior has a light system that indicates what's going on with the re-charging. Flashing red light means the re-charger is receiving AC current, solid red means it is re-charging the bike's battery, flashing green means the battery is over 80% charged and solid green means the battery is fully charged. The re-charger went through the various stages as bike's battery was recharged. At 1 point, I tried to turn my TMAX on and, it came on which showed me the re-charger was working.

I don't know what caused the battery to start acting up. The only thing I can guess is the hand grip warmer I had installed on the bike. The warmer heats up the hand grips on the handle bars helping to keep my hands warm during winter riding. 1 down side to the warmer is that it doesn't automatically shut off when the bike is turned off. This means I have to make sure I turn the warmer off otherwise, it'll drain the battery. I can only guess I accidentally left the warmer on after I turned the bike off and later did turn the warmer off but not before it drained the battery down some. Thanks to the ring terminal I had hooked up to my TMAX's battery, this ended not being a disaster. I would recommend others have this done on their TMAX. Remember, the battery on the TMAX isn't easy to get to. You have to remove the mirrors, windshield and front plate in order to get to the bike's battery. Having that ring terminal installed can save you some major hassle if your TMAX dies on you battery wise. Happy riding all!