Battery Issue

Hi all, I am having an issue and wanted to see if anybody had any ideas. About 5 months ago I replaced my battery with a new Pirate battery. I went on a ride in October and it worked fine. I have another bike so I parked the WR and didn't ride it until last Sunday, February. So, the battery was completely dead. I put a trickle charger on it and within a hour the trickle charger said it was fully charged. I took the bike trail riding. After about a 1/2 hour or so I turned the bike off to take a break. Bike wouldn't start after that, just some clicking/buzzing when I hit the starter button. Couldn't get it to start. I tried jumping it from my car with no success. Took the bike home. Tonight, I put the trickle charger back on and with in 20 minutes the bike fired up. I put a voltmeter on the battery. 12 volts when bike is off and 14 when the bike is running so it appears the charging system is working. I pulled the error codes off the computer 30, 43 and 46. 30 is lean angel sensor. 43 and 46 indicate low power to the fuel system and computer. I cleared the error codes and restarted the bike. No new error codes.

Does anybody know why it would have failed or what I can do to prevent it from happening again?

If the battery was left without charge for some time, then the battery is probably dead. The fact that the trickle charger sensed that the battery was fully charged after only an hour, confirms that the battery cannot accept full charge anymore (a trickle charger should take more than 16 hours to fully charge the battery).

Given that the new battery was completely discharged after only 5 months, it is safe to conclude that it was defective. The battery should still be under warranty though, so you should take it back for a full refund or replacement.

Agree with the above:
You have to keep the battery sufficiently charged, whether you are riding the bike or not.
If not, you get what happened to your new battery.

Also, make sure your next battery is 100% charged before you put it in the bike.
Using a new battery that's not fully charged will shorten it's life, too.

Thanks for taking the time to post. That makes sense. I will check out the battery. I put the trickle charger on and it took a few hours (I left it on overnight) to come to full charge. The battery is now showing almost 13 volts with the bike off. Someone else advised to let it set for a week and see if it holds a charge to see if the battery isn't faulty.

Measuring voltage will not give you much information; the voltage could be within range, yet the battery may not be able to hold a charge for very long.

You don't have to wait for a week between experiments; start the bike, turn it off, wait for half an hour, then start it again, and see how many times you can go through that cycle before the battery gives up. When my battery died, I could only go through that cycle once.

One thing you may want to do is get your VIN # and call your local Yamaha dealer to see if the Stator recall has been done.

If not, then drop the bike off and have them do it. Should not cost you any thing to have them replace it.

The Stator is what provides electrical power to the bike and if that thing is toast you won't be able to charge the battery while riding.

Good thought about the stator. I actually did get mine replaced under warranty a few years ago. I think I learned about the issue on this forum. I am showing over 14 volts when the bike is running so I think it is still okay.