Looked at new battery for my 1260 Pike Peak this morning. The one previously fitted was on my previous 1260 and is only about 3 years old. I got that one from Halfords, mainly due to the discount given with my forum issued Halfords Trade Card. It was a Yuasa YT12B-BS (same as the OEM fitment). It was transferred to the Pike Peak as that battery looked like the original and was 5 years old at the time. My old 1260 was written off and spent about 6 weeks in France, part in storage and later a couple of those weeks trundling around the country in the back of a truck. With its tracker active all that time the battery was pretty depleted on it's return but put on an Optimate seemed to make a good recovery. Checking it yesterday it's only just holding around the 12v mark. I was fitting a different phone charging solution and even just turning on the ignition saw a drop below 12v. It's been on a solar Optimate all winter. Starting issues on tour last year has made me look at this again and fitting a set of recently delivered ExactStart cables is imminent. Thought I'd give it a better chance with a new battery considering then above. Looked at a few options, have a battery specialist just across the road from my house £71 and in stock. Online best price was around the £60 mark but delivery extra in most cases. Local Halfords was £59.99 click and collect but with the Halfords Trade Card only £40.29! Have gone with the Halfords option again, sucker for a bargain... My only thought is this battery is from stock and they're likely to give me the oldest one on the shelf 'cause they aren't stupid, or maybe they are... I guess being a gel battery these are filled at the factory, so what's the shelf life on these?
I've gone the Halfords battery route with several Bikes in recent years, mainly because like you I have the discount card. I also buy all our car batteries from them now partly for the same reason, and partly because of the warranty. The battery in my Discovery is huge, @£350-£400 from Land Rover, and only lasts @3yrs regardless of what brand you use. Online they are @£250 from most places including Halfords, but I think last time I got @£50 off with my trade card. And of course they are open 7 days a week. 2yrs ago we were in Cornwall during the winter and the Disco was starting to struggle to start. The Halfords battery was only about a year old but my diagnostics suggested it wasn't in the best of health. I dropped into Halfords Bodmin on a Sunday morning, with my trade account showing I'd brought a battery of that part number about a year ago. There was no quibble at all. they simply put a meter across it, and replaced it with a new one. Try doing that several hundred miles from home on a Sunday with a battery you had delivered from an online store a year ago!
Batteries from Halfords can sit around, IME, for years. I’ve returned 2 Yuasa so far because they just won’t hold a full charge. The second one I returned was just this weekend because, no matter how I charged it, or which charger I used, it would not charge to more than 13.1 on any measure including using 2 different multimeters. I had to explain to the staff that a healthy battery charges to 14.1/14.2 - that they had no idea about, thinking that 12v was all a 12v battery should be expected to hold. So I came away with a new Yuasa and after a day on charge…. 13.1v is all the new battery will take. Is it just Yuasa, or ‘stale’ batteries? The first battery I returned, a couple of years ago, had a rubber stamped date stamp on the underside of the box lid that was 3 years old, presumably to show when it was filled!
Agree ^ sadly batteries out of Halford aren't generally "selling like hot cakes" anymore and (as above) i took a motorcycle battery back last year before even fitting after realising how old this stock item was. * The second one was only marginally better appearance-wise, and had no date (!) but accepted out of desperation to get back on the road. I will be buying Varta for car batteries where possible from now on, due to constant problems with Halfords battery life expiring long before 4 years warranty coupled with local branch reluctance to replace due to inadequate testing equipment.** Have bought Halfords for as long as i can remember/at least a decade or two. *Terminal connections were dull/light corrosion and box "dogeared" **Have several times said "nothing wrong with that" because over 12 volts displayed upon testing..
Thanks all. I see my fears regarding batteries from Halfords are not unfounded. Replaced the battery in my Tiguan last year. With stop-start (which I've disabled, another story) it's got a large expensive battery, around £250-300 from most places. Bought a Yuasa from Tayna Batteries for about £130 and haven't regrated that. They do the Yuasa YT12B-BS for the Multi at about £70 delivered which may have been a better option. I think the BS designation means "Bottle Supplied", the electrolyte being in a pack that you add to the battery before pushing in the row of caps. This activates the battery. Not sure if this is really the case and if so Halfords maybe do this prior to collection? Will check date and voltage with my multi-meter when I collect. Also will ask for confirmation on the "BS" thing and is correct how they work with that. On my last one I couldn't find a Yuasa date code on the battery itself.
agree, they are slowly gathering more and more attention in the marketplace so must be doing something right. I've bought from them before but their prices are more reasonable now
Collected battery from Halfords. Forgot to ask about the BS aspect... Voltage was just shy of 13v, they said it would need a charge before installing, it's on the optimate now, we'll see... It has a Yuasa code on the battery, looks like (according to info on the web) Nov 2025 so hasn't been hanging around long which is promising.
I don't suppose I'm the only one been notified my post has been moved from Replacement Battery From Halfords to Replacement Battery From Halfords.
It's just been moved to another sub forum: Ducati General Discussion > Clothing, Gadgets & Equipment. My bad, I looked at the available sub fora and obviously, in the eyes of the mods, made the wrong choice...
When mine went I just popped in the Ducati dealers but I had to go back the next day to collect it. They hold them dry and then fill and charge them as required, they usually keep one ‘ready’ but had fitted that day
