GTS OWNERS CLUB

tonysupernova · Joined: 05 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: London

I've had my GTS for just over a year now and use it mainly for going to/from the office. Whilst i love the bike i've now got a bit of a love/hate relationship with it!

Basically after the first couple of months i've had reasonably frequent battery troubles.

First thing in the morning is usually the problem - and it either wont start or will start and then cut-out but then not re-start. 3 attempts is probably tops before the battery is out of enough juice to get it going.

I've had to charge/jump start it loads of times now and its bl**dy frustrating.

Anybody else had any similar problems or have i just got a dud battery?
Any advice?

Cheers
Tony

Maver · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject:

sounds like a dud battery to me........

do you have access to a volt meter, might be handy to do some readings to see if it loses charge overnight.........

how far is your journey to work?
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flipspeed · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:13 pm Post subject:

Yeah, i've had similar probs with mine,it's on charge again as we speak...
as we were all about to leave mersea island....guess who's scoot wouldn't start Rolling Eyes

...and i had been riding round the campsite on the saturday,normally if i leave it more than a couple of days without starting it,i have to jump it or recharge it,i did go to see about a new battery on saturday,but my local dealer wanted £50+,so i thought i'd wait and put it on charge again. Laughing

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Maver · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:19 pm Post subject:

make sure you get the connections to match the battery that you already have fitted as some come with the terminals reversed which is useless, others come with side mount terminals instead of top mount which can be tricky Wink

might be worth having a word with cheekythomas so we can get the correct model number for the battery we need Cool

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flipspeed · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:22 pm Post subject:

yeah i was going to have a word with cheeky to see if he could get it any cheaper too!!! Laughing

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Maver · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:25 pm Post subject:

tonysupernova · Joined: 05 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: London

thanks for the speedy replies maver and flipspeed, much appreciated.

i didn't want to put the full details in my first post for fear of writing an essay, but i can add....

My journey to work is about 8 miles (or is that 13k's! Confused

) - but that's mainly through town riding.
Volts seem to be good, think i was getting 13.5v last time the AA man checked when it wouldn't start when i was over at my gf's.

I was interested to find out what other riders thought, cos this is the kind of info. i've been given by various garages/recovery guys....

1) The bike needs to be taken out for a good blast of at least 25miles once a wk
2) As soon as the cold spell starts the battery will just die
3) Putting a cover over the bike will help- here's one for £50
4) You'll need an optimiser - here's one its £50!
5) The garage i bought it from probably only initially charged it for under 3 hrs

On the basis that scoots are meant to be good commuting machines i find these all, like a bitter pill, pretty hard to swallow! It almost seems like the more i use it the more the batt runs down (..and i have had the alternator checked out)

So what do you think? Is the batt covered by any warranty?

smudger · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject:

Maver · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:49 pm Post subject:

my journey to work is only about a mile and a half each way........

does sound to me like you'd benefit from a new battery, doubt you'd get much joy on the warrenty side of things as they're a "consumable"....

i have a optimate battery tender, only use it if the scooter is going to be left unused for a long time but having said that the scoots been left for ages and has always fired up brightly first time.

cold winter weather will soon drain a poor battery.
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jetex · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:40 pm Post subject:

New battery needed mate. The battery should read around 12.2 to 12.5 volts in a reasonable state of charge. When running, the alternator puts out around 13.5 to 14.5 volts. With the engine immobilised, if you can press the starter button and crank the engine for approximately 15 seconds, the volt meter should not drop to less than 9 volts over this period. If it does - new battery required.

flipspeed · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:31 am Post subject:

monty9120 · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:20 am Post subject:

I didnt think we went fast because of the weather

Just shows how far you can get in 10 minutes Cool

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GILERA NEXUS 500
DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE!!!!!
NORWICH BROADSMEN SC

martin68 · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject:

In these cases it sounds like a duff battery is the issue but if a new battery does not cure the issue and it keeps going flat during use it could be generator failer. I know of two cases where after just over 10000 miles the generator(stator) packed up, the scooter would run fine when the battery was fully charged but once the charge discharged during use the scooter would stop dead because ECU would shut down. Hopefully helpfull information for someone. Wink

Apparently the stator is submerged in engine oil so no wonder its prone to failure, mad or what!! Laughing

tonysupernova · Joined: 05 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: London

thanks a lot for the replies.

I guess the way i see it is i've got 3 options:

- get a new battery
- buy an optimiser to keep the existing one going
- or carry on charging the thing on a monthly basis

I might have start doing some checks on the Voltage its outputting.

Any idea of the cost of a new batt?

CheekyThomas · Guvernor Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 1374