Lately when I've been going out to start up my 2001 Xplorer 400, it cranks once with the electronic start and the battery goes dead. Two pulls with the pull start and it fires right up and everything works fine. The battery is a year old but has not been on a charger since I bought it. I'm going to put the battery on the charger this weekend but is there anything else I should consider looking at as a possible problem?

 

had the same problem in my other atvs. one thing to check for is to see if the battery is grounded right. other then that just go ahead and replace it. you can get some batteries for around 30 bucks.

 

If you do have to replace the battery. Get the Gell battery. When mine went out I got the old standard battery and had to deal with adding my own acid and such. It was a pain. The gell cell battery is the way to go. Plus you can order it off the internet and can have it shipped to you, do to the fact that it is a gell cell and not acid. Cost wise its over twice what you would pay for a regular. But to me well worth it.

 

Check the level, if you have to add use distilled water or if you can find acid to go in batterys use it. I haven't seen none in a while but haven't looked either and clean the top real good so dirt won't get into the battery.

 

Top off the cells with distilled water if necessary, charge the battery with no more than a 1 ½ amp charger then check the specific gravity of each cell with a float tester. This will tell you the condition of each cell and whether or not it can take a charge. These small batteries that you have to add electrolyte to when they’re new require almost 24 hours of initial charging time on a low amp charger to start their lives out right. If you don’t get them off to a good start you won’t get much time out of them. A lot of dealers, especially if they need to set up a machine for a customer in a hurry, will just pour in the juice, throw it on a high amp charger for a couple hours and call it good enough. The result is premature battery failure.

 

Thanks everyone for the info. I'll have time to pull it out this weekend and look it over. I'll post back when I find something out.