Citroen Specials Club - the club for all lightweight cyclecars

Has anyone here bought Motobatt batteries for cars/bikes? I have one on the Brookands (BMW 1000)and it seemed to be a good buy so I got one for the limper(BMW 850) and my Velocette too. Today neither of the car batteries would turn the motor enough to start. The Brooklands had been on a trickle charge last week and the limper on a trickle charge overnight. Neither had enough oomph to turn the engine. Any views? Any other experience of Motobatt?

I've got one in the Avion. Works fine. The big issue with any AGM battery is that you MUST use a smart charger. A regular charger will kill them overnight.

So does that mean I've goosed them both?

Unfortunately you probably have. Some of the smart chargers have a recovery mode that can bring them back - but didn't work for the £250 Odessey battery in the hot rod.

Duncan,
I know nothing about the rights and wrongs related to AGM batteries but, having read your post (and recently obtaining an Odyssey battery of unknown condition for my in build special) I searched the net for how to charge them and found a number of entries. One entry from a HOT ROD magazine article went into detail about how to recover a dead AGM.
Sorry but I don't know how to provide a link to the article here, but a Google search (as I did) should find it for you.
Touch wood, at the moment my battery seems healthy.
Good luck!

I have fitted a Motobatt battery to my restored BMW R100GS-Paris Dakar and when not riding it, the bike is connected to an Optimate III 'smart' charger. Cheaper than the similar Odyssey with lots more oomph than the standard battery.