What good is cleaning everything up and getting ready to ride if your charging system is bad? As we are preparing for the first ride of the season we are going to need to test our motorcycle battery charging . Don’t worry, making sure your motorsport vehicle or motorcycle battery is charging is fairly easy. First off, if your machine comes with an on board voltmeter, do NOT trust it! I know some bikes out there have very reliable voltmeters but you don’t want to risk a tow home because of it. A quality multi-meter is a great addition to any tool box.

So once you have the multi-meter out, you want to set it to DC volts. Make sure you can access the battery post easily and start your machine up. When it is idling, check the volts at the battery. Anything from about 13.2-14.8 volts is a good test. Check it at 2-3K RPM and again 4-5K RPM. Same results?

Great! If you’re not getting at least 13.2 volts or you’re testing out at anything above 15.2 then you have a charging issue. For help on how to find out what’s wrong your system, check out our Youtube videos or give us a call.

Just to review our Getting Ready for Spring posts, make sure you have a good battery, clean and grease the major connectors, and verify that the bike is charging. Not many people think about their charging or starting systems until they fail, but by following these few simple steps you can greatly reduce the risk of having one or both systems fail on you. If you do run into any problems or you get stuck trying to find the right part, just visit our website. Our entire catalog is online along with our helpful tech videos. If you are still stumped after that then give us a call. Happy riding!!