I have a 98 sportsman 500 put a new battery on it and rode for a week and battery bad put a new one on and let sit a few weeks started everyday did fine but rode 2 days and dead battery again what would cause to kill battery stator??

 

get a volt meter and w/ it running check how many volts are at the battery w/ the engine reved a little. should be 13.5+ and w/ it shut off it should be around 12.5 volts. if not then maybe rthe recifier is gone or stator. just a guess.

 

I had a bad starter that was drawing down my battery even while it was off. Replaced the starter and it hasn't went dead since. I was having to put a jump box on it everday to start it and then it would run and start fine. The next day it wouldn't start again and have to jump it. Replaced the starter with one from ebay and it's worked for months now.

 

Thanks for all the help i am going to check starter then go from there

 

Charge the batter after you take the starter off and check it after a day or two with a voltmeter and see if it still shows a good charge. That's what I did. Unhook wires from the starter only. Leave the others on the battery so you can determine if it may be something else. When you want to try it a couple days later hook the starter wires back up so that key will turn everything on. On my EFI when you unhook one wire from the starter it breaks the total connection on the bike and nothing will work. Not sure if the older ones are like that not since they aren't computer controled.

 

Sounds like something is drawing from the battery. I would assume that if it was a stator not working properly the battery would show signs of low voltage during/after a long ride. That would be easy to check though.....measure battery voltage before ride....ride which as much electrical 'stuff' on (lights, etc).....then measure voltage after ride. Should be same or higher if stator is working (higher if you start out with a low battery and the stator charges it). To check and see if something is drawing off the batter while not in use, measure voltage with some number of days of no use between the measurements. If the voltage is lower for the second measurement then something is drawing from the battery.

 

That's basically what I was stating above. The starter is what was drawing from the battery. It was dirty and rusty inside it where the brushes are they were constantly drawing power. On an ATV there is very few things that will draw power. Especially on a carb atv like he has.

 

Of course, it just might be a worn out battery....My 06' Sportsman 800, from non use the first year, was put away for that winter with a weak battery....it never did come back fully the next spring and I was having to recharge every other day and then finally kept a battery tender installed. It would never hold a charge greater than 9 volts for more than an hour, which made the starter drag terribly, and sometimes not engage. I just installed a new battery a week ago and everything seems o.k. so far.......The dealer said unless I used my ATV on a regular basis, I should keep using the battery tender installed. Never had to do that with my older Polaris's....Bigger battery', higher prices, and less dependability....go figure!!!!!

 

it could be low on water also that's what happened to the original battery on mine.