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Let me first say that so far Batteries Plus has been doing a great job communicating with me. They seem genuinely concerned and so far appear to be willing to take care of me and getting the bike repaired.
I bought an Xtreme Permaseal battery for my motorcycle on 3/12/12. It was a replacement for the same exact battery that was already in the bike, but was 3 or 4 years old. The previous owner told me that he had replaced the battery when the bike was 2 or 3 years old.
I brought the battery home and put it in the bike. I did ride it down my street and back, then put the bike back in the garage and closed door. During the install of the battery, I didn't see anything that would have alerted me to the impending disaster.
Fast forward two weeks. A buddy of mine called about 8:30pm and wanted to see if I wanted to get out for an hour since he hadn't ridden in a while. He showed up here about 9pm, I pushed the bike out of the garage and took off. I never thought of giving the bike a second look b/c over the Christmas break, I went through the bike doing brakes, oil change, adding stainless lines, etc. It was time to ride!! My buddy and I were out for an hour or so and when I got home nothing seemed unusual so I put the bike back in the garage and closed the door. Thinking I had nothing to worry about, I never gave the bike a second thought.
This past Monday (4/9/12), I decided to use the bike to run some mid day errands. Repeating my usual routine, I opened the garage and pushed the bike out. It was in the driveway when I noticed "something" on the swingarm. I actually thought to my self "I don't remember going through any water" while thinking back on the hour that I was out with my buddy. Then I noticed this white stuff was kind of raised up on the surface of the swing arm. I grabbed my detailing spray and rag to start on cleaning up this mystery mess. Much to my surprise "something" leaked on the right side of the swing arm while I was spraying the left side. It hit me with a sinking feeling... In my own head I literally said "the only thing right above the swing arm is the BATTERY!" At this point I was freaking out and a little pissed at the same time. I pulled the seat off, then the battery cover and I could see the battery was wet. Assuming it was acid I did what I could to contain the mess and also removed the battery.
Tuesday morning I called the store where I bought the battery. I remained calm while on the phone with the manager and she agreed to meet with me personally at my earliest convenience. I went in around lunch time and of course she wasn't there. I urged the clerk to get her on a cell phone to see when she was going to be back. The manager had her ask me to wait 10 minutes and that she would come right back. That made a good impression on me bc I figured she was at lunch and would make me wait an hour. As soon as she got back I forwarded the pictures of the bike to the manager. After that she immediately went to work on the battery trying to locate a leak. For three or four nerve racking minutes she was unable to locate the leak. Then she had me jostle the battery like it was under hard acceleration and that did the trick!!! It was leaking heavily from the top of the battery. She took several pictures of the leak and seemed very thorough in documenting what was wrong. She assured me that she would pass it on to corporate and they would be in touch. She asked that if I hadn't heard from them by the end of the week to call her and she would call them directly to see what she could do.
Corporate called me yesterday and said take it to any shop. They will work directly with the shop to get this fixed. With that being said, I dropped the bike off with Patrick at A&R Motorsports.
We'll see what happens next!
4 door
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