So Your Motorcycle Has a Dead Battery. Now What? | MC Garage

A dead motorcycle battery is a drag, but it won’t ruin your day. Here’s how to diagnose, jump-start, and charge your motorcycle battery so you can get on your way.

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Whether you left your key on or you’ve just got an old battery that’s struggling to hold a charge, if there isn’t enough juice to turn the starter, you’re not going anywhere. Bump-starting your bike might work, but modern motorcycles with fuel injection and electronic ignition systems need a fair bit of juice to do their thing, so you’re probably gonna need some supplemental electricity.

If you’re not in a hurry and your battery is just tired enough that it won’t crank the starter, you could just hook your bike up to a battery charger and come back later or try to diagnose the problem. But if you need to get going right now, you’re going to need a jump-start.

Diagnosing A Motorcycle Battery
The most important tool you’ll need to diagnose your dead motorcycle battery is a multimeter. This will allow you to see the standing voltage of your battery. Remove all of your bodywork or pull off your seat and connect your multimeter to your battery terminals. Remember, red is positive and black is negative. Once you’ve connected the leads, turn your multimeter on and set it to read volts, some multimeters auto-detect the voltage it should be reading and others require a setting—read your multimeter manual and it should give you a good idea for what setting you need to use.

If your battery reads above 12.73 volts, then it is good to go and the reason why your bike is not starting lies elsewhere. Below 12.73 and you should give your battery a charge. Below 12.05 and its time for a new battery. Your bike may start with a standing voltage of 12.05, but it might be hard to start, causing wear on your bike’s electrical system. If you’re on a time crunch and need to get somewhere now, then jump your battery.

How To Jump Start A Motorcycle Battery
Plenty of car drivers roll around with jumper cables, which will allow you to use the battery in their vehicle to get your bike cranking. Just find yourself a good Samaritan, have 'em pop the hood, and hook up the cables.

First, connect to the positive (red) terminals on both vehicles. Then clamp onto the negative terminal of the good battery, but attach the other black clamp to an unpainted chassis part away from your bike's battery. The idea here is that, since the last clamp you connect is going to spark, you want it to happen away from the battery, which could possibly, potentially, maybe be emitting hydrogen gas due to its unhealthy condition. And, as the folks in the Hindenburg found out, hydrogen is flammable. You're not likely to have any issues, especially with modern sealed AGM batteries, but it's easy to minimize the risk to nearly zero by clamping somewhere safe.

If you’re jump-starting off a car, we recommend having the car off because the car’s battery has so much more capacity than your bike’s battery. If the car is running, you run the risk of overloading your bike’s battery or frying some of your electrical components. In a perfect world, you’d thumb the starter once and your bike would fire up, but that probably would not happen, so it is better to be safe than sorry.

So with the cables connected, flip your bike’s key, hit the starter, and hopefully, it fires up. With the bike running disconnect the cables—negatives first at both ends—but keep your bike going so the battery can charge up.

Jumping A Motorcycle With A Power Pack
Jumper cables are a tried-and-true method, but there’s another option. Jumper packs, like the Portable Power Pack from Deltran, are small and light enough to stash in your backpack and work great to keep your phone charged or as a work light while you’re plugging a flat tire on the side of the road at night, but where these devices really shine is as a portable jump-starter. It uses a lithium-ion battery that’s strong enough to crank a V-8 truck, and while it’s pretty expensive, it’s undeniably convenient, especially for motorcyclists.

What To Do After Jump-Starting Your Bike
Once your bike is up and running again, don’t assume everything is all good. At your earliest convenience, you should hook up to a charger to ensure your battery is properly topped off, or go back and try to diagnose the battery. Ideally, use a modern multi-stage smart charger that’ll charge and recondition your battery. And if you’re not sure why your battery died or if you’re having issues with your charging system, stay tuned to MC Garage.

[CaptainVelveeta]

Just bought a pre-gen Ninja 250 and you guys are like having a big brother to go to every time I have an issue...I appreciate everything you do...you guys are awesome!

[aarons]

The best solution to a dead battery is to place a fan in front of the bike, sit on the bike, and use your imagination. Yesterday I went to ride of the century rode with the guys at the Isle of Man and never left the bubble wrapped safety of my garage.

[YTisDumb]

Always Park at the top of the hill. Problem solved.

[estellemarshall]

I just started riding a motorcycle and my battery went dead. You helped me find the location of the battery on my bike lol Thank you!

[jfkid]

I just killed my battery by leaving the key in and the light on and was unsure of the best things to do for my battery after that. I really appreciate your great and detailed instructions. Keep rockin two wheels down.

[mariobondanza]

Hey Ari, this is a very useful video, I hope you will release more in depth ones.
One more tip from me: once the engine has cranked, then go out for a 2 hours ride on a smooth road (avoid stop and go in the trafic) in order to let the electrical system of your bike to effectively recharge the battery. If your battery has really come to its end, then this method could not be enough. For this reason, if you have some rest along the way, then take care of parking your bike facing downhill. The recharged juice should be enough to power the sparks and the injectors anyway, the slope will help you cranking the engine. Sometimes even the 2nd gear is too short, then go with the 3rd.
Have fun ;-)

[surg]

This happened to me recently. Battery dropped to 11.2 volts. Stuck it on a charger for 30 minutes and she was good to go.The battery quickly went up to 13+ volts and started like a champ. The battery was reading only 30% charge on a smart charger. That power pack looks quite tempting now.

[angeloriley]

Dude! Thanks for helping me out on this nice sunny day. It worked and I was off in 10 mins! Thanks for the simple and clear explanation. It was a great day.

[salmaanrazzakofficial]

Excellent! Your video saved me from spending hundreds of dollars ~ was able remove the seat & charge the dead battery (as the motor bike was left unused for months!! Much appreciate

[oerangoetangoerangoetang]

VR46 Helmet spotted in the left corner! I just want to say that you guys are awesome and i have been watching this channel from the beginning. Great quality content with a lot of usefull tips and tricks. Love it! Keep going! Much love from Belgium!

[povlhalberg]

And the connection of negative cable to frame on the "dead" bike is also because the current will take the path of least resistance to the starter. The dead battery will act as a huge resistor and can make jumpstart even more difficult.

[professionalspeedster]

I started learning to ride on my dad's bike yesterday and I heard this exact sound when I tried starting it, I'm so glad I didn't just break it beyond repair

[BoZhaoengineering]

Thank you very much for your instruction. This is exactly what I need. My bike's battery is dead now and I need to jumper it for startup.

[worldtraveler]

Being i have a degree in electrical engineering, i can tell you he is right that you cant damage the bike battery from jumping it with a car or truck or a tank battery for that matter. Electrical devices only pull the amount of current they need. The dead battery is just another load in a the circuit of the larger vehicle, therefore it will only drop the voltage from the running circuit that its rated for, and it will only pull the current its rated for. Electrons flow negative to positive, therefore current is pulled and not pushed. This is why it's always the negative terminal that sparks. Yes it is ground, but power is constantly being pulled to ground, the lesser charge. Think of how vacuum works. Air gets pulled to the lesser pressure. The cylinder creates low pressure below ambient when the piston is sucked down into the cylinder by the crankshaft. This gives the intake manifold vacuum. And now with vacuum we can run fuel pressure regulators, brake boosters... and turbos.

[snakeman]

I have heard all sorts of horror stories about charging your bike from a car, so I clicked on this vid and it did help, damn battery virtually flat. It took 3 attempts to start the bike from the car battery, with plenty of revs to stop it dying, I thought the battery had died on me all together, this attempt to save my battery is much needed as the weather is getting colder...

Working fine now, fingers crossed.. Cheers bro..

[MovethesoulKR]

THE best motorcycle channel for informative videos!! Always appreciate your work.

[disekjoumoer]

As this is the case on my bike, I ingeniously got a Noco Genius. Will try it out tomorrow. Thanks once again for your awesome videos. In case you're catholic, I'm nominating you for the patron saint of motorcycle repair.

[sreesha]

MC Garage.. Thank you for your service! Jumped my 2016 kawasaki ninja zx6r battery whihc was completely dead from my car and left it running for 45 mins.. battery charged fully.. no issues..

[blipco]

When jumping from a car...12 volts is 12 volts whether it comes from a big battery or a small battery. You can not harm a motorcycle by jumping it from a car battery.

[NAJErEa]

THANK U FOR THE EXAMPLE OF THE SOUND A DEAD BIKE BATTERY MAKES @0:03 UGH SMH LOOKING FORWARD TO THE VIDEO