Flat Stanley
Both Covid and cold have taken their toll on the battery of Stan’s GTS. With a replacement being required he’s also taken the opportunity to make flat batteries a thing of the past.
Thanks to lockdown, my GTS spent most of last year isolating in the garage so it should have come as no surprise that the winter cold snap would finally kill its battery. However, like most neglectful owners, I was completely unprepared for its refusal to turn over. The Vespa GTS is many things, one of them being reliable, but unfortunately if the battery dies there’s a very limited number of options. It has no kick start, bumping is impossible and there are real risks of damaging the electrical system by hooking up to a car battery. (Voltage may be the same but amps are rarely compatible.) Normally it would be a simple matter of charging the battery in situ but this is the second year running I’ve failed to learn by my mistakes. As this battery’s been charged from flat a couple of times I no longer trust it and as the GTS always plays second fiddle to my two-strokes the risk of neglecting the new battery remains.
A less fickle trickle
Fortunately there’s a solution in the form of a ‘trickle charger’, also known as a ‘battery tender’. The idea is that the tender can be used to maintain the battery, either by being plugged in permanently or hooked up at regular intervals. The tender detects any drop in charge and gently brings the battery back up to working capacity. There are plenty of them on the market but I plumped for Oxford’s Oximiser 900, mainly because it was in stock at my local dealer. Search carefully and these can be bought for under £30, which is much cheaper than a new battery. Please note that if your machine’s fitted with a lithium battery it will require a special charger; in Oxford’s case that’s the Oximiser 3X.
KKeep BBritainiti Tidy Tid
Although the Oximiser is supplied with a set of ‘crocodile clip’ leads, these are best kept for bench charging. Much more useful is the permanently fixed ‘quick connection’ socket. There’s a number of ways to incorporate this, indeed it can simply be laid inside the battery compartment. However unscrewing the cover every time a top-up’s needed seems to defeat the point of having a quick connection kit. After a little poking around I found a way to thread them into the footrest compartment, quite neat if I say so myself. Although I’m describing the process of fitting a GTS battery, the same principle applies to any battery-fed scooter. Like most jobs it’s easy once you know how and even the most ham-fisted scooterist can complete the swap in under an hour. Although next year’s battery-killing cold weather’s still a long time away, it’s always more pleasant working in warm weather. If you want to make life easier next winter, my advice is that now’s the time to invest.
Words and photographs: Stan