New Battery – 2020
Recently I have been charging the battery on a bi-weekly basis – so its been iffy for a while. I checked the wiring and looked for parasitic energy draws but couldnt find any 🙁
Finally on trying to charge it today, it just refused – with my trusty charger which is not an el-cheapo job, went straight into bike trickle mode.
Hence, i started searching the internet for the replacement to the Yuasa battery. It seems that the YBX3335 is no longer in production (which gives credance to how long its been working for !) so would have to find an alternate.
The main spec is as below
Also getting the dimensions right for the bongos slanted/tight bonnet is essential.
First stop, halfords – its nearby, and they usally have batterys in stock.
Filtering on the Capacity and Crank amps gave these options
The price seems a bit excessive and couldnt find any with dimensions i was happy with and Cold Crank Amps, but at least I had a starting point.
Searching the internet and bongo forums produced some good leads, in particular battery recommendations. Alot of people seem to like Bosch on the forum, and I do trust them also, but digging around Varta/Bosch, seem the same !
214.99 ! yikes, thats pricey, but again, its a good brand and available today. So lets search the internet some more.
So using Google shopping section..
Huh ! 90.37 ?! Well thats quite a saving ! Reading around as well Tayna have a good reputation. So I’m off into their site.
On the same page as this battery is the Lucas.
Thats even cheaper at 82.99 ! but wait, its one year less warraenty. If the 7 pounds really made a difference to me, then I could of gone with the Lucas, but for an extra few pounds and 1 more year, no brainer really !
So I go for the Varta and get to the checkout section ‘Coupon’ – well google again ! If its electronic hunting for money off I’ll give that a try.
Sure enough, no more than 10 minutes I find a code which people are saying its still active – and one of the few times i type in “FACEBOOK40” into my computer.
So its, only 2.71 – buts 2.71 for a few minutes googling, but the overall price with delivery, £96.24 and a 5 year warranty !
About 15 minutes later I got notification of dispatch, so whilst it means no bongo for 1-2 days, the biggest saving between euro-car parts (215) and Tayna (96.24) – £118 ! I know thats exteme, but I could of quite easily of just bought the first battery I found, so it really does pay off to shop around.
More bongo updates soon – wont say ‘mega’ update again, i’ll just do an update when i got the battery in and take some pics then 🙂
Al.
POST FITTING – LESSONS LEARNED
Get the right battery with the terminals on the correct side 🙂
This didnt effect me too much and was fixed by getting a battery cable extender, but did cost me a few quid. I guess I could of returned the battery and replaced it with the terminals on the ‘right’ side, but in the end it was quicker/easier to pop to a local shop and pick up a terminal adaptor and length of battery-rated cable. I’m confident it will be ok for its MoT as the battery is secure with the terminals all in order, and it has worked fautlessly for one month since fitting, requing no charging or removal from the bongo since.