How a precautionary measure ended up causing a major issue on my bike

I highly think that the Exide battery I got is a lemon and simply refuses to hold charge

BHPian ramubwoyy recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It turns out that my extra precaution turned out to become my downfall because my bike had no major issues up until I chose to change the battery to Exide at a local shop.

So, that day, the RSA mechanic arrived in the morning and quickly found out that this new battery had almost no voltage (5v, ideally should be above 12v) in it (he was unsure if there was something causing additional drain or if the battery could not hold a charge, more on that later). The service centre that I take is 30 km away from my home, so he took the battery to get it charged up.

He came back in the evening and used the now charged-up battery to start the bike and it came on without much of an issue. I rode to the service centre immediately, as I did not want to risk any chance of the battery failing again. The service manager took my bike in to examine the error code. He kept turning the bike on and off to double-check and on one such cycle, the error just disappeared! I was now able to move through the bike's menu and see the voltage of the battery, which was all fine. They seemed to think that the battery had maybe been on the shelf for some time and that was what caused it to die out. I had done a small 10 km ride post installing the battery, after which the bike was untouched for almost two days, which probably meant that it had little to no charge left.

The whole thing did seem a bit off to me (never opting for Exide battery again) but I decided to do my Dhanushkodi ride the next day. Stormy performed flawlessly over the long weekend ride where I covered 1200 km over 3 days. In fact, the battery issue was no longer on my mind. I came back and the bike was left in the garage for 3 days. On the 4th day, I had to do a bit of city commuting only to discover that the bike was not starting and it was giving me the same issue as before.

'FI' error on the screen with no cranking when trying to jumpstart. Thankfully, I have no big rides coming up, so I was not too worked up over this issue. Currently, waiting for RSA to come and charge the battery so I can take it to the service centre, so they can take a proper look at the problem.

I called up the service manager and told him about the problem, for which he seemed to think that there was a wiring issue and not at all a problem with the battery, stating that it was brand-new.

A few queries/doubts, which maybe you guys can share your thoughts on:

1. If there was an electrical issue, why did it not pop up on my bike during the ride? There were certainly some rough roads where I rode quite roughly, which should have brought to the surface any underlying issue.
2. I highly think that the Exide battery I got is a lemon and simply refuses to hold charge over long periods of time. Since I was riding continuously for over three days, the battery always kept getting charged and was hardly left idle. Even before, the bike rode fine right after getting the battery installed. But then died out as soon as I left it for a day and a half.

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