Sudden Battery Failure (SBF)

[TrueAce]

In all my years of BMW motorcycles, I have never experienced a battery failure like this past week on my '94 K1100RS, CornBread, by way of Brick of the Corn, from the Johnny O Stables, through an unknown dame.
So normally I keep one of those battery maintainer things to monitor and supplement battery status, but a few weeks back, I failed to hook up the 1100. And got a predictable dead battery.....though it seemed too soon for the battery to drain. A 24 hour charge got things right, but 48 hours later it was dead. So what do we know a low battery will do besides not start the motor.......right, fuse the starter relay. From experience I keep a couple on hand of the better version with a double contact. Upon removing the battery, replacing the starter relay, I noticed the PC-80 had a bulge around the middle. My regular battery shop didn't have the PC- 80's in stock,all the bike shops were closed for Monday, so I headed to a large Interstate battery store. Eureka, they had an exact same-size motorcycle battery with 340CCA, and my Tuesday departure to Norfolk, Va. could proceed. I took the less traveled scenic 500 mile route, took care of business  in Norfolk for two days, got up yesterday to head home, a "quick" 6 hour Interstate run. As I accelerated onto the ramp for I-64 leaving Norfolk, at about 60mph, the bike received a good bump from a road seam as I was moving into traffic, and suddenly lost all electrics.......dead in gear. I got to the shoulder and realized after a quick diagnosis, and using my lithium jump pad, CornBread had suffered a massive cardiac event that I wasn't going to solve. Fast forward through the surreal conversations over the next hour with assorted Good Summarians who aren't bikers, a tow truck ride that would require its own story, and I found myself in the hands of Adventure BMW, Cheasapeake, Va. All the techs were at lunch, so I settled in for a long wait. A BIG THANK YOU TO the owner Rich, who came over and said let's check it out. With a few tools, under a shade tree, he and I  replaced the battery with a quality ( $$$) BMW dealer battery. The test on the Interstate battery seem to indicate it suffered from the freeway bump and "Broke" the neg-pos connection internally. When I say Sudden Battery Failure", I mean throw you off the saddle sudden. Nothing more than a catastrophic battery failure. Dead-line to Depart leads to desperate Interstate battery choice which leads to an expensive but successful outcome.......I reached my destination in 12 hours instead of six. Anybody else have a similar battery collapse?  :mbird

[Chaos]

Anybody else have a similar battery collapse?  :mbird

No.  I had an Interstate in my Bronco way back, it was good. 

[Martin]

Had a car battery fail in my 63 AP5 Valiant  wagon after 6 hrs use on the way to Melbourne, got a jump start and made it to Melbourne. I found a Century battery dealer and they swapped it out. I was told the cause was a collapsed cell.
Regards Martin.

[The Dude]

When starting my RD200" electric torque induction"Yamaha in 1974 the battery blew up showering acid all over the internals,ruining my denim trousers inside leg,etc.One of the plates buckled and shorted possibly igniting any hydrogen at the top of the cell.I can't remember what I did next...probably laughed.

[The Mighty Gryphon]

I have installed hundreds of Interstate group 24 and 27 batteries on sailboats over the past 10 years and never had a problem that wasn't related to owner neglect/abuse.

Having said that, I spent 30 years in the injection molding business and one of the products I was involved in was battery cases.  The walls separating the cells are pretty thin, and are subject to problems in getting the molten plastic to flow into them.  I suspect your problem is related to what is called a weak "knit line" in one or more cell dividers.  A good shock could cause the material to separate, effectively shorting out 2 or more cells.  This is definitely a manufacturing defect and should be covered under warranty.  Have you contacted Interstate?

Just a thought, but how tight are your battery hold down screws?  A lot of down force on the top of the battery will put a bulging stress on the sides of the battery case which translates to the dividers.  This coupled with a good bump may be what caused the dividers to let go and allow the sides to bulge out.  Around these parts(up north) a common cause of bulging is the freezing that occurs at low temperatures to batteries that are stored with little or no charge on them.

[TrueAce]

Now that is a very good scientific explanation of probable cause. The PC-80 with the slight bulge, and unable to hold full charge, came from a frigid Northern state, but had been in service a while. Was holding up fine when ridden daily, but once depleted couldn't come back to full charge. That's understandable. The Interstate was five days old, didn't have a chance to abuse it, so it's definitely going back to the dealer. Thanks, MG, for the explanation on battery "knit lines", which I never knew about, ........that's what I get for buying anything that would fit just so I could get going instead of waiting a couple days until I could find a proper battery.