My friend got a maintenance free battery for his old Grizzly. It's ready to drop in, straight from the box. No filling with acid, charging or anything else needed. It's permanently sealed and recycles the fumes so it won't dry out.

 

I only buy maintenance free batteries. They don't cost much more anyway. I haven't needed to buy a new battery for my King Quad so far. I bought one for my Brute Force for about $45 with free shipping from amazon. The local Kawasaki dealer wanted about $100 for the battery they had in stock which was basically the same thing.

 

Polaris dealers always want a lot of money for OEM batteries, but the exact same made in the USA Yuasa batteries, without the Polaris name on them, are cheaper elsewhere. I can buy one a mile down down the road from me if I want, Yuasa AGM batteries too, but I would probably get something online if I needed one. Are AGM batteries harder to charge? Yuasa says, "Don’t use an AGM battery in the place of a Conventional battery unless you are sure your vehicle’s charging system can handle it". That's weird. I just used their online app to find a battery for my quad and they only make an AGM for it now.

https://www.yuasabatteries.com/batte...hicle_id=30203

 

I just looked up the one for my King Quad on that page for future reference. I guess efi machines needa a lot more cc amps, the battery for my Brute Force only had about 200. 270cc amps is what it gives for the 2008 King Quad 750. I'll probably just order one off Amazon again when I need to, this gives me the info I need to make sure its comparable.

 

While I agree more than I am going to pay. But what does the price of tires have to do with the price of batteries, other than both have gone up alot.

Surpises me to have a lead acid battery anymore, Bikes have had sealed gel batteries for years. A touring battery is around $150. Which is up $50 last 10 year. But I get 7 years out of them.

My ATVs got replaced with another acid battery. Nothing at Fleetfarm for that year. Next time will measure and look specs. That being said the water level is fine, and I have not added since I got in 2011. At work we have lead accid batteries for 25 years. But they stay in a room and have maintenance dept to take care of them.

 

Every battery I ever bought cost a fraction of what a tire costs. Now tires are a fraction of what that new kind of battery costs. The price of tires hasn't changed that much, but that LiFePO4 battery costs 10 times as much as the last ATV battery I bought.

 

I go through lots of bike tires. I'd say they have gone up almost as much as batteries. I was getting batteries for $100. Now 150. Tires have gone from around 130-180, I can't remember exactly number.

But I could also talk about the price of X, Y, and Z going up and would not have darn thing to do with this conversation. We are talking about batteries not how much a loaf of bread was when you were a kid, or gallon of gas.


Batteries/charging systems have also gotten alot better. I get 8-9 years in my truck. Bikes 7 years. ATV has 7 and sxs 6.

 

Since you mentioned truck batteries, the original battery in my truck lasted 10 or 11 years. When it finally quit on me I got a new one a lot cheaper than the ATV battery I mentioned earlier. If I wanted to get a cheap one, I could get a new truck battery for $69.99 at AutoZone and they would install it for me free, like they did that cold winter day they replaced my original battery while I stayed nice and warm. I felt kind of bad about that and bought the gal that did the work a nice hot cup of coffee to help warm her up.

 

I have had good luck with gel batteries in bikes. Is there a reason they can't handle the vibration of atv? I just don't want a lead acid battery that i have to maintain. Not that it is that hard. FF didn't have my year sportsman 600. I ended up getting factory battery which was way over priced for lead acid IMO. Next time will measure and go with specs. No mowers, I don't overly care, they are around $30.

 

YUASA made the OEM batteries for all my ATVs and it was cheaper to get the same exact battery, without the ATV brand name on it, anywhere other than the dealer. I've heard good things about AGM batteries but have no experience with them personally. From what I've read gel batteries cost more than AGM batteries, have less power, don't last as long, aren't as good when it gets below freezing like it does here, have to be charged a certain way or they die sooner, take up to 5 times longer to charge, and you need to install a special regulator on your ATV. Those are all good reasons why AGMs outsell gels 100 to 1. I'm not going to be the guinea pig who experiments with a gel battery on my ATV, but may get an AGM when the time comes. They're still both lead acid batteries but they're built different, sealed and maintenance free.