Odyssey battery life

[01 Rider]

What kind of life people are getting out of the Odyssey batteries? I've had mine a little over 5 years now and I'm wondering I if I should start thinking of replacing it. It's always on a battery tender and it's given me no indication it's going to fail but you never no.

[BuddyRich]

Mine is the same age as yours. There's been a couple of times I left something on and completely drained it. Used a regular car charger on 6 or 8 amps to get it charged again and its still working fine. I figure one day its just gonna be dead and that's that. Probably get another one since this one has lasted so long and been abused.

[Squidley]

With any Venture you can't tell, "Sudden Death Syndrome" happens all too often on Venture batteries no matter what brand. I have had it happen on 2 year old batteries, decent ones too. If you got 5 years out of that Oddessy your doing good, but I would think about changing it out if you have a big trip planned

[KenP]

I just turned in a 1 year old PC680 under warranty. I had been using a Schumacher charger, which is the same manufacturer that Odyssey sells on their website. Charged it at the 6A rate per the manual. Funny thing is that it would indicate fully charged, show 12.8V when you hooked up a voltmeter to it, but when you hit the start button, it would fall below 10V. Even my Argus battery bug would show 14.2-14.5v when it was running down the road.

 

The factory is supposed to get back to me on the reason for the failure, but like Squidley said, they can fail quickly sometimes.

[Condor]

I used to run Odysseys in my first gens.... actually set up a group buy on them several years ago....but have since switched over to Dekas. The Deka has a little higher cc rating, but the big differences are... they are the same foot print as the OEM Yuasa, and they cost less. Another reason for the change was I had some warantee issues on early failures with the Odysseys. So for all of the above reasons I changed paddles. MOF I still have a couple of PC680's sitting in the corner of the office. I keep them around for project bikes. Put a top off charge in them every 6 months or so. They don't lose much sitting.

On the Deka, it's one tough battery. I ran from Sacramento Ca to Thermopolis Wy... 3 days... on just the battery. Rectifier problems. I think I might have made it to Cody if I hadn't turned on my driving lights for about 50 miles on a 2 lane high speed back road. The thing show'd 8.9 volts on the meter when the bike died. I've never had one show that low of a reading.... ever. Put it on my charger in Cody, and I'm now running it in the bike again. There are several sources for Dekas on the web. I get mine from Bohannon,..about $85 bucks... but another member found them for even less after shopping around. I'll stick with Bohannon since they've given me great service....

[Snaggletooth]

I'm with Condor on this one. If you need to replace the old battery I'd go DEKA. I'm only into my third season with mine now but it's been flawless during that time. And I have abused it pretty badly during that time. It's handled more than any other battery I owned and comes back to full power with a charge.

 

Mike

[N3FOL]

I'm still on my original battery with 25K plus miles on the bike. I figured this season may be the last season that I will keep my battery. Come late Fall early Winter, I am going to replace it with a Yuasa or perhaps one of those motorcycle batteries Advance Auto sells.

[cecdoo]

Still on the orig. in my 06, thought about replaceing it this year, but it just keeps on going. HQ for Deka and Odessy are both in Reading,Pa FYI:think:

 

Craig

[awsmsrv]

Still on the orig. in my 06, thought about replaceing it this year, but it just keeps on going. HQ for Deka and Odessy are both in Reading,Pa FYI:think:

 

Craig

Yep, me too. I ride almost every day to work & back (even in winter here, unless a chance of ice) & I still plug my CTEK battery maintainer/conditioner in as soon as I park it in the garage. Seems to be working. Maybe not necessary at this time of year, but, being fully charged all the time can't hurt either.

[bongobobny]

Supposedly they advertised that they were designed to last up to 10 years but no warranty on that length...

[N3FOL]

Still on the orig. in my 06, thought about replaceing it this year, but it just keeps on going. HQ for Deka and Odessy are both in Reading,Pa FYI:think:

 

Craig

 

If my battery is going to go weak and fail on me, it would be during the cold weather. Something in the back of my mind is telling me to replace the battery this winter. I do a good amount of cold weather riding, so a replacement is in the works. Nice to know Deke and Od. is not too far away...

[cecdoo]

Again just for the info, not to stir anything up. I never use a tender, my bike sits for 1-2 weeks over the summer between rides, and sits all winter nov.- march. I do give it a good charge 2-3 times over the winter. Its not a heated garage and I keep the batteries in the bikes.

 

Craig

[N3FOL]

Same here, I keep my battery in the bike but if it sits longer than 7 days in the garage I will plug in the battery conditioner for a day or two then go for a ride. Winter riding for me is weather dependent. The original Yuasa is still doing great...I don't know, perhaps it also helps having a whole lot more LEDs instead of regular incandescent bulbs.