Forgive me in advance for this question but I’m not very mechanically knowledgeable. I have a 2013 Road King that I have had a year with no problems. I just got it back from a dealership after they put new handlebars on it for me. My problem is since having it back, I find that the battery is not charging during a ride. I used a battery tender to fully charge the battery overnight and it indicated 100%. I rode it for about a half hour today and checked it when I got home and found that the tender indicated the battery was at 75%. I called the dealership and they told me to bring it back up and they would look at it but they immediately brought up a bad battery or strator.

Now my question, could something have affected the strator during the handlebar installation? I just want to know ahead of time if I need to argue with them about the repair. I know they will make good if it’s wire in the handlebar and if it’s the battery, well that’s on me. I just don’t want to get taken if its there mistake.

 

Could be just coincidental timing, but no there is no way the stator or VR could have been impacted during handlebar install unless there is physical damage to the VR. When running have you done a voltage test to see what is going across to the battery?

 

I just did the battery test after watching a YouTube video.

With the ignition off and the battery fully charged from my battery tender it reads 12.44 volts.

When I run the lights, it drops to 11.87

Starting it dropped to the 8 volt range

Just idling it went to 14.14

Revving it to 2000 rpm for a minute it went to 14.20

 

Sounds to me like you just have a old failing battery.

 

Put a new battery in, that one is junk! According to your measurement it sounds like the charging system is fine.

 

Thanks for the responses, I can live with a failing battery, I was just worrying that it was going to be something major.