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How to Buy a Battery We aggravate some people at the shop when we refuse to sell them a battery over the counter the instant that they show up to buy one. I know that many of our competitors will sell them one on the spot. We have a very good reason for this. We want to insure that the customer gets the very best value for their dollar that we can provide them. Money is kind of hard to come by and we want your to last as long as possible. The standard process works something like this. Buy a battery, take it home and throw acid in it. Bolt it in the motorcycle/ATV and hit the starter button and go ride. If it won't start, throw the car battery charger on it at high amperage until it will, then go ride. After all, in America, we want it NOW! Yuasa (the leading manufacturer of motorcycle/ATV batteries) states that a battery that is service with acid, installed and started (in a best case scenario), can only be 80% capacity of strength. Once the high amperage load is placed on the battery to turn the electric starter, a chemical process occurs in that battery that effectively seals it at 80%, no matter how much you charge that battery later. If you read the article titled "Why Doesn't My Motorcycle/ATV Battery Last?," you will learn that a battery held in a low discharge state accelerates the sulfation process, causing the entire process to short circuit. That article also points out that a battery discharges at a rate of 5% per month just sitting. Due to the maybe 200 different batteries required to service our industry, it doesn't serve the customer for us to keep batteries sitting on the shelf going bad waiting for a buyer, so we generally (maybe one or two exceptions on very fast moving batteries) don't service them until they have a buyer. There is also an issue with the design of a battery to be strong. Many of the bargain stores offer batteries that don't have as many lead plates per cell as the better batteries. Unfortunately, the only way that a customer can verify this is to actually cut the battery open and count them, ruining the battery in the process. Of course for the Bargain Store, price is the king, and since lead is the most expensive component of a battery.... We like to treat our customers more intelligently. So we start with a better battery. This is how we service your battery.
When we hand you a battery, you can be sure that it is all that it can be. If you maintain it as outlined in the article "Why Doesn't My Motorcycle/ATV Battery Last?," you can be assured that every step has been taken to provide the very best battery, and to take care of your charging system. |