I have had some seemingly slow starts, I checked an my Duracell battery is 2.5 years old. I keep it on a battery tender but I know that does not stop them from going bad. I also have heard of batteries lasting some 7 years. I can take it back to Batteries plulss and have them test it. Will that tell me if its going bad?

 

many factors, so impossible to say... 2 to 5 years is pretty standard.

And yes, Batteries Plus, or any auto parts store can test your battery.

 

I've had bad luck with tenders. Every battery I keep on a tender only lasts about 2 years. I quit using the full time tenders and I've been getting at least 5 years out of my batteries. I suspect the tenders slowly cook the batteries. Better to put a charger on the battery once a month.

 

Not. Never heard of a true brand "Battery Tender" causing premature battery failure. Trickle charger yes....battery tender no.

 

Unless you have a "deep cycle" battery [common in sailboats and RV's], the best way to shorten a battery's life is to deeply discharge the battery and/or leave it in a semi-discharged state for prolonged periods of time. Conversely, always leaving a battery at 100% charge is not great either because it develops a "memory" which leads to:

100% - 99% - 98% - 97% - 10%. [An exaggeration for demonstration only - but you get the idea.]

 

Bought my road glide new January 2008, still the original battery. I have load tested it the last couple years and it's still in good shape! Looks like it will make 10yrs no problem!

 

I put a multimeter on it and it shows 13.3 volts.

 

That means nothing until it's put under load.

 

But it's a good start. Last battery I had that was DOA showed 12.2v at rest.

 

Battery memory hysteresis does not occur with lead acid type batteries. It is an issue with Ni-cad batteries.