What Can Make a Battery on a Tender Go Bad?

If a motorcycle, ATV or side-by-side battery goes bad after it’s been charging on a battery tender, what could be the problem? Could it be the battery tender itself? 

Partzilla’s powersports expert John Talley hosts live Q&A sessions on our YouTube channel every Friday at 3pm Eastern. In this session, John was asked what could make a battery that’s been hooked up to a battery tender go bad. 

Battery Tender Charging Gone Bad Q&A

What would cause a battery that you have on a tender to go bad? I took the battery out, then put a load tester on it and it showed it was good but then I put it back in the bike and it died. Any ideas? Also, what are your thoughts on new Yuasa batteries?

John Talley: I’ll start with that first, Yuasa is the battery of choice, unless you’re going to go with the lithium stuff. But Yuasa is the leader. There’s a reason they make all the batteries for 95 percent of the manufacturers: they’re good at it. As far as the tender, I have run up on that before with a cheaper tender. I’m not going to name names, but it did a fine job of charging it up and then I just kind of forgot about it. The lights on it indicated that it’s good to go but guess what? No, it wasn’t good to go. So I’d be a little bit suspect of whatever battery tender you’re using on it. Just stay away from the cheaper ones. 

Watch the video below to learn about motorcycle battery types and how to charge them.

Watch the video below to learn how to winterize a motorcycle. 

Watch the video below to learn about the differences between battery testers and multimeters.    

Want to see more live repair questions answered? See more motorcycle and ATV repair questions answered here.