Modern Vespa

hello! quick question. normally i ride all through the winter but Toronto has gotten alot of snow recently and more on the way tomorrow, so i havent ridden for a couple weeks cause of unsafe riding conditions, too slippery... just wondering how long you can let it sit without starting it before the battery is dead.. and if it is, then what? thank you!

No quick, hard fast answer. It's gonna depend on the quality of the battery, it's age, temperature and length of time stored. If it were me, I'd put it on a battery tender. Then you don't have to worry about it, unless your battery is crap to begin with.

It depends on the parasite drain. Each scooter is different. I have gone through 6 or 7 batteries myself . It is better to disconnect them but I would say if you leave them on more than 8 weeks you may damage the battery. The P200e batteries are very small and even the vendors will tell you that getting a solid 2 yarn of life is a success.

I had more expensive gel sealed batteries and they also go bad. Best thing to do is to disconnect one of the terminals if you think you are not going to use it for a while. If you have a PX150 definitely turn the key all the way to the back.

Assuming your battery is in good shape to start with, I haven't noticed a problem when one of my scooters sits for a month. The "what do I do when a battery is weak" question is usually best answered by use of a battery tender. If, however, you let a battery sit too long fully discharged, it will permanently damage the battery

When the hotter months keep me off the bike, I use a battery tender plugged into a lamp timer set at two hours per day. This has worked well on six different bikes.

My 2017 300 GTS has recently been 5 to 6 weeks without driving. It is stored in a garage and the outside temperature varied between -2 degrees celcius and 10 degrees celsius. The battery is original. When I was finally able to drive, it started without any problems. Note that the battery received a maintenance charge via a "smart" charger about a year ago.

If you don't have a charger, the least you can do is bring the battery indoors and keep it warm.

Piaggio prescribes at least once a month to start the engine and let it run at an engine speed "a bit above idle" for at least 15 minutes.

Sounds not so easy, so I don't do that. I have a Ctek trickle charger and in winter I connect it to the 12V socket in the glove compartment of the BV. That works perfect, independent of weather conditions.

Our winters vary a lot. Some years we have bad winters, other years we have mild winters. And typically weather conditions in winter, all year round actually, are very unstable. So far this winter has been mild, but you never know what next week will bring so I just by routine connect the Ctek and I don't have to worry.

UNTRUE! Unless you mean by 'least' is the less good thing... The best you can do is to keep it cold - the colder it is, the less the self-discharge. Warm it up before first use again, as the warmer it is, the greater the available capacity and cranking amps.

As a single datum, my GT200 battery (Piaggio branded sealed LA) in the UK started the scooter first time after it was left unattended for fifteen months.

My Metropolitan seems to go dead enough to not start in about four weeks. Usually there is enough to run the fuel pump and I can kick start. It doesn't get driven much anyway, so likely most often not fully charged anyway.

I use a battery maintainer during winter storage.

Chris from CLE

Just for the things to know.
Toronto in Canada is at 43° 38' latitude. In Europe quite comparable to the city of Nice in the south of France (43° 42' latitude).

Our house in BE where we are living is at 51° 00' latitude. We never get Canadian winters here, at least only very seldom.

I start getting nervous around the 3-week mark without riding. After a month, I hook up the trickle charger. When I had a garage, I just left it plugged in. When I didn't, I would connect it until full charge once or twice a month. Don't start the engine as a means to charge the battery. It needs to run above idle to do that. I would run the engine for a few minutes every few weeks to keep the fuel and oil from sitting, but know that just doing that will only drain the battery faster.

Probably because I'm cheap, but as my stable of scooters is now (temporarily) up to 4, I cycle my trickle charger between scooters...GTS in the garage gets most of the attention, the other 3 on the family farm. I visit every 2-4 weeks and rotate the charger. My older BV has a new battery, and it takes maybe 10 minutes to hit solid green, the LX has a fairly old battery, maybe twice that long, and my new-to-me 2017 BV wasn't there after an hour or more. I don't know if it's any measure of battery status, but I'm a bit concerned it's nearing the end of its life.

Regardless, I'd say a good battery can get through the winter in pretty good shape. Not saying it's ideal, but doable. Don't know that I'd bet on jimc's battery life, but that's good data too...

No, don't rely on that! I was completely surprised - I was quite prepared to find it completely discharged and beyond resurrection. I was just pointing out that that's not always the outcome.

I'd be pretty surprised too. If I had to abandon a scooter for the winter I'd be saying a little prayer before hitting the starter but not all that surprised it started....

Bonus anecdote: my HPE was parked for 4 months with the battery disconnected. My friend who was storing it tried to charge the battery at the end of the 4 months, but the battery was still full.

Can't set the clock though, because I think the MODE button is corroded. Something to look into when I get my brakes bled.

Jimc,
good point you have here, I guess it also depends on the type of winter that one experiences. I usually do not ride for 6+ months here in Michigan, the Vespa stays in a unheated garage (can easily go to 20F, sometimes perhaps 10F), and bring the battery to the unheated basement (let say 50-60F, very stable).
Should I leave the battery in the garage at sub freezing temperatures?

Thanks for the suggestions, interesting discussion here!

Ahh ahh. The part of Michigan were I live is pretty darn cold in winter. The latitude is the one of Tuscany!

Lead-acid batteries are fine left alone between -40°F and +120°F, but shouldn't really be charged or discharged outside of -5°F to +120°F - IIRC.

For what it is worth, I have five scooters.

I ride them all, and because I live in Florida, I ride year round.

Occasionally, one will sit for over a month, but they always start when the key is turned.

And none of them have ever seen a battery charger or maintainer.

Bill

Thank you, will change my approach so!

At what point do you start worrying about the liquid inside freezing and cracking the battery case?

I've found that AGM batteries tend to hold a charge better than traditional lead-acid batteries.

Without a trickle charger, I've let bikes sit completely inactive for up to 4 months with no issues. My scoots are garaged, but not temp controlled. So it can get below freezing in my garage here in Ohio.

A cheap trickle charger (think Battery Tender jr) will extend life significantly. I use it from end of October to end of February, with very few riding days during those months. I had 5 years (30K miles) on an AGM battery in my GTS with zero issues. The 1st two years had no charger.

due to the craziness with Covid my scooter and I were separated for over a year and the trickle charger was not plugged in. When I met up with it after a year it started right up but it is a fairly new battery as I had replaced it a couple years ago. Generally if I am going to let it sit more than a few weeks I do plug in the battery tender

If it's fully charged, about -80°F.

So quite unlikely in the lower 48.