Have a '13 Fat Boy lo. Kept it trickle charged all winter and ride consistently throughout season. Bike sat for a week after a harder start the last time. Battery could not power a turnover. I have never had a battery give me problems after only 2 years. Not exceedingly cold here, garaged, nothing drawing on it. Had to charge it to get to shop.

They tested charging system and battery could not find anything wrong. I should not have to trickle charge it every day while getiing it out a few times a week. I said what if i went away for a few nights, its not like i am going to charge it in a hotel parking lot.

Will see if it is ok tomorrow morning when I check to see if it held charge.

I usually have batteries last much longer. Is this odd? I hope it was a fluke.

 

Two years is unusually short, unless there's been just a single deep discharge incident.

Get a load test done on the battery and if it fails just go for a new one.

 

They did a load test at the shop, found nothing wrong. This is what is so puzzling.

 

Did they actually put a high load on the battery and measure the total voltage drop over a set time?

 

When I bought my bike the dealer added some lights and windshield to it before I took it home.And the salesman who helped me did the final walk around to show me how the lights worked and so on,I went to leave and it would not start so they tested the battery and it had a bad cell. so it does happen that batteries go bad early.

 

They had it on some testing machine for about an hour. They said it had proper voltage on a cold crank. I cant tell you exactly what other scenarios the machine tested but they held onto it for awhile and it showed nothing.

 

My 2 year old battery would randomly do that. Keep it on the trickle charger. Turn on the radio while getting ready...maybe 10 minutes...and it would not start. Just decided to have it replaced for good measure.

 

I had to replace mine after 22 months. It got to where it was dragging when it was starting cold. Big when it was hot, it showed great on the meter at the shop. But I got paranoid thinking about being out and having it not turn the engine over.

 

Your bike has Security.

 

I've often wondered about the longevity of Softail batteries being effected by being surrounded by 250 degree oil on three sides much of the time. My Softails always seemed to go thru batteries much quicker than my touring bikes.