Modern Vespa

Today I'm covering seven things that determine your Vespa battery's lifespan, and how to maximize it. Four of these battery lifespan influences are completely within your control, but I think the other three are equally as important to understand, especially before you spend your hard earned cash on a new one.

In this video I cover why the initial setup and charge of a new battery is crucial for both performance and longevity, how your riding habits can impact your battery's lifespan, and the importance of good maintenance and storage.

We'll also look at the things outside of your control, like the impact of battery capacity (bad news for small frame owners), type, and manufacturer choice. I'll let you know why I recommend high-quality brands like Yuasa and Antigravity, and caution people against buying from fly-by-night Amazon and eBay sellers.

Overall, this video is my attempt at a comprehensive guide to maximizing your Vespa battery's lifespan.

JimC, Greasy, et al, if you guys have anything to add by all means, let me know. If I missed something I'll pin it in the comments of my video so others can learn too.

I would not trust a motorcycle battery for 8 years. Most car batteries only last about seven. Some more, some less. But seven is the average. Three to four is the average for motorcycle batteries. Do not want to push it on something that doesn't have a kickstart or gears so you can push start it.

Excellent. Thanks for that Adri. I also use Yuasa. My 2001 BMW's ABS is quite sensitive to low battery voltage and sets an alarm when the battery is low (details not important but it's a well known situation). I keep my battery on a Battery Tender Jr. whenever it's not being ridden and have NEVER had the alarm set except the few times I forgot to connect the BT Jr and didn't ride for a while.

I look forward to the Lithium ion review when you do it.

Thumbs up on YT as well. Thanks! Miguel

Fair point about not wanting to push luck too far, but my truck battery doesn't get nearly as pampered as my motorcycle battery does though. The motorcycles are all plugged in after every ride. The truck battery is only plugged in if I'm leaving town for a week or if we're getting -20 C/-4 F, and it lives outdoors.

Back to your point though. I'm not toooo worried about it because I took the battery load tester to it last spring and it came up GOOD. If this spring it comes up as only OK on the load tester, I'll replace it.

Thanks for the kind words Miguel.

The comments section is really interesting. Wide range of personal stories being shared. It seems there are more than a few of us who put our bikes back on the chargers after almost every ride and are getting 8+ years out of our batteries.

Another BMW owner said he traded his bike in after 8 years, with 90,000 km on it (56k miles), with the original battery. Never had to touch it, just plugged in after every ride.

And then there was one guy who said he bought a cheapo battery before putting his bike away for the winter, didn't maintain it, and six months later in the spring time had to buy a battery again lol

Hopefully the video will save some people some headaches.

Not in the desert heat. In the Phoenix area, auto batteries last two or three years. Startup fine in the morning, dead at lunch.

didn't know hot weather was an issue. Interesting

Mentioned that in the video extreme weather like hot and cold are hard on them Got a tip from one of the local guys who rode in Australia for a decade. He said that he was replacing lead acid batteries annually down there from the heat and humidity, but once he switched to lithium batteries that stopped.

Post might be of interest to you guys: https://www.gtamotorcycle.com/xf/threads/im-getting-8-years-out-of-my-yuasa-battery-and-you-can-too-lol.224126/post-2879500

Between this thread and others I've seen quite a few people mention the quality difference between the made in Japan Yuasa batteries worth the made in the USA ones, so that's worth thinking about moving forward.

Although, a little further down in that thread, one member mentioned getting 9 years out of a cheap generic battery, and another member got 13 years out of his Yuasa.

I replaced the factory-installed Yuasa battery in my GTS after ten years. I didn't mean to. I wanted to put it on a charger over the weekend, which is something I had not done in years, because it means removing the battery from the scooter, which parks outside in the cold.

I dropped the thing and it bounced off several times falling down the stairs. Looked alright, but I didn't want to risk a fire and went and bought a €40 replacement. I have been happy with it all winter.

I changed the battery of my car after 14 years. That was the Varta that was installed from the factory. The car is always parked outside in all weather and often not moved for weeks. My wife had to jump start it once in winter. I replaced the battery several troublefree months later.

I don't think we've gotten a car battery to last a full 2 years!

Our motorcycle and scooter batteries are several years old and mostly going strong. I've had Gigi for 5 years this month; her battery is the same as when we brought her home. It has just started to show its age and will need to be replaced this year.

I experienced the same thing with car batteries when I lived in Tucson. They last three years max, then they would suddenly fail.

When they failed it was usually in a mode that they needed to be replaced to get the car started again, I could not successfully jump start them at all. I assume that meant some kind of internal short.

Having lived a number of other places I was very surprised at this failure mode but it happened to me several times.

As I watched the video I started checking off the things that were going to shorten the lifespan of my battery -- cold weather use and storage and lots of short trips and errands.

I just replaced the YUASA in my GTS with another YUASA. I got three years out of it. And that's typical lifespan for the past 15 years.

A couple things were suggested by the battery dealer owner who is also an ardent motorcycle rider were this:

Don't leave the battery on the Battery Tender all the time if it is a trickle charger. It will fully charge the battery and keep on charging. Leave it on long enough and it will heat the acid and speed up fluid evaporation.

The other was in the directions that came with the battery. It says to check the fluid levels once a month. Add water if needed. He said that sadly that's true. And it is a pain in the ass for lead acid batteries, especially ones that are not easy to access.

I never checked the level and every dead battery I had was low on fluid.

So I'm left with either more frequent battery changes or fiddling to get more life. At $61 for the YUASA battery, I'm not going to fiddle much. It's a minor expense. I'll pay the $1.69 a month for a battery.

Not if you have a maintenance free AGM battery. I would have thought YUASA would be AGM.

They make both the sealed kind, and the cheaper ones you have to top up.

Small frame LX / S owners will likely be familiar with both and most good dealers would tell you that you can get a lot more bang for your buck by replacing the one that needs servicing for the sealed one.

I didn't even realize that the GTS called for a battery that needed servicing. Both of mine came with sealed batteries.

Maybe try the good stuff next time VESPAsfw3?

Have any of you desert heat guys tried Lithium batteries as I mentioned the rider who did a decade in Australia recommended?

Curious to see if others in similar harsh environments have tried it and found the same success or if that was a one-off.

Thank you to pass on your knowledge your video was very instructive .

adri, I enjoyed your battery video. Concerning lead acid batteries I'd like to mention that sulfation kills most batteries as well. If battery voltage is allowed to drop for extended periods, for example winter storage the individual battery cells will start to sulfate and short the cells out. Even a cheap float charger at 13.4 volts can sulfate a battery over a long winter storage period. Many folks leave a battery unattended and they just degrade to the point of no return thus sulfation. If you leave a 12 volt lead acid battery sitting dead, the sulfation process is at work and next spring a battery charger probably will not bring it back.

I have two of these babies that de-sulfate batteries (see picture) that I rotate on a ~ weekly basis between 4 motorcycles and a riding lawn mower. It keeps my batteries healthy. Google is your friend and those charger/desulfators are about $60 +- or so. I've had old dead sulfated batteries from bike projects that came back to life using these things. I just let them "ping" away for a month or so! If they don't recover then they truly are shot! It's saved me from buying batteries unnecessarily. They have more than paid for themselves.

I think 3-4 years is a common average, because so many people neglect batteries, but that doesn't mean it has to be the average.

On the Triumph Rat, despite only a dozen or so individuals posting, there's a handful of instances of batteries getting 10-14+ years: https://www.triumphrat.net/threads/how-i-get-8-years-from-my-motorcycle-battery-and-you-can-too-lol.999901/

I see it as health over age. Like if I had to pick a fit sixty year old vs an obese forty year to live longer, or to be my partner on The Amazing Race, I'm going with the retiree who runs marathons for fun.

Sure, you could pick neither and spend the money and buy a new fit battery, sometimes it pays to be "rather safe than sorry" - but I think with the right maintenance and use, as long as my battery still tests GOOD on the battery load tester in the spring, it'll be okay...

...For now lol

Thanks so much for the kind words. There are a ton of people on here who are way smarter and way more knowledgeable than me... but they don't make info-driven youtube videos, unfortunately, so you're stuck with me

Wait, pause, rewind - Mitch posts on MV from time to time and his how-to videos are fantastic. I learn not only how to do the task at hand, but his videos are also a great demonstration of how to present information to people in easy to follow detail.

We often post about the bigger channels on MV, the ones that are bought and paid for by the biggest retailers in their countries (Revzilla, Fortnine), while overlooking the creations from within our own community. Not sure why.

Mitch has a ton of really helpful Vespa content. If you'd like to support independent YouTube channels that are just trying to help out others who ride the same bikes, consider checking out Mitch's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MitchsScooterStuff

Thanks, and, ah, frig!

First of all, you're dead right. When I originally recorded the raw footage for the video it was 20 minutes. I cut it down to 9 minutes while editing, because no one wants to listen to me for that long...

But now I can't remember if I left sulphating in or out. I probably should have given an honorable mention to desulphating battery chargers (like the freakin' Ctek that I show in the video), but I'm pretty sure I totally overlooked that. Dang.

Thanks for catching that! I'll try to add something in the description and in the article I wrote on my site. Good point.

adri, you did a great job and it benefits a lot of folks on this site!

Nice work Adri.
For a lot of us weather isn't something we can control and hence have to deal with the elements.
I have to replace the OEM battery on my Vespa, I haven't yet looked to see what it has in it. But I am leaning towards getting the Motoblatt battery instead of the YUASA. Shall see when it gets warmer which one I shall end up getting.

I seem to have had better success than many of you. I do not plug in the tender unless its going to be a couple of weeks until I ride next. It is usually plugged in most of the winter. My Silverwing got nine years out of the battery. Original owner had just replaced it when I bought it at six years old. It had an AGM battery in it since it sits on its side. My GTS got about eight years out of the last battery. It was a Motobatt battery. The Motobatts seem to hold up well. A lot of the time the scooters are in an airconditioned garage, so they don't get exposed to a lot of temp extremes. But for the last four years they are outdoors under roof, so I will see what lifespan I get as time goes by.

As a side note - I have a 2019 RAM truck. The battery in there got me to about three months past the warranty and died suddenly. I used to get 6-9 years out of a vehicle battery, so I was very disappointed. Again, the truck is in an airconditioned garage. Additionally, I work from home so its not like it spends eight hours a day in a hot parking lot. It spends most of its life in the garage.

I think location is going to play a big role. I've noticed many of the people that seem to just shrug at 8 years as typical seem to be from places a lot warmer than me up here in Toronto, Canada.

Sucks about the truck battery though. I feel like Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler love to have stuff break 4 minutes after the warranty is over. My catalytic converter on my Jeep failed 700 km (430 miles) before the end of warranty. Got lucky there.