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Toadz400
08-18-2005, 07:26 PM
Today I went riding with my girlfriend and some other friends. We stopped on the trails to wait up for some people on a Sportsman and when we went to start the Predator up, nothing happened. I checked to make sure the key and switch was on but it still didn't fire. So I figured some connections were loose on the battery because it had been fine ever since they got it. I kneel down to look at the battery and it's gone! The negative and positive wires were hanging down with the negative still attached to the top of the battery, the rest was gone. There was also battery acid sprayed all over the underside of the fender and tire. A couple hundred feet back was the rest of the battery, looked like it was ripped in half from the inside.

Has anyone ever heard of this?? I did a search on here in this section, but maybe I should've tried a more extensive search throughout the forum. We're just trying to figure out why the battery did this, it doesn't seem like it's possible that anything hit it and busted it open, because there really isn't any way for a rock of that size to be kicked up there. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

Pappy
08-18-2005, 07:28 PM
i mis read your post, its the predator that has the battery problem?

did it fall out and get ripped apart? usually when they blow it remains in place, and causes a big mess.

causes, usually a bad cell and thru continued charging (riding) the battery builds gas in that cell. internal spark caused by the damaged plates in a cell causes the ignition,kaboom.

Toadz400
08-18-2005, 07:49 PM
Originally posted by Toadz400
when we went to start the Predator up, nothing happened.

Yea we were talking about the Predator. What is the battery usually held in by? I don't see how it could've just fell out. If it did, would the tire be the cause of it being ripped to shreds? If that was the cause, wouldn't you think the rider would've heard something unusually and checked it out? It does have a pipe, but you would think you'd be able to tell if something is being ripped to shreds by your tire. It's not really needed to know why this happened, we're replacing the battery obviously and making sure nothing else is missing, but it'd be nice to know why this happened so as to prevent this in the future.

Pappy
08-18-2005, 07:55 PM
with the sportsman (which i first thought was the quad with the issue) we lost 2 batteries. both came out of the rubber hold down and the rear tire and such chewed it apart.

i am not familiar with the battery holddown on a predator, but if the battery came out of the battery tray then id say it could be a possibilty.

even with automotive batteries, sometimes we can find no explaination for why one grenaded. it runs the range of a bad cell, reversing the polarity, something shorting out the battery (wrench sparked across a terminal igniting the ever present hydrogen gas produced by batteries) heck, when winter comes tow truck drivers blow them up left and right because a discharged battery can freeze!

the battery in the polaris should be a sealed agm unit, and truthfully they dont blow as often as a lead acid battery, but i dont have an application book here at home to see what model the predator comes with.

Toadz400
08-19-2005, 12:55 AM
Alright thanks Pappy, I'm pretty sure now it must've just fallen out and gotten chewed up by the tire. And sorry about not being clear enough on which quad I was talking about. Today was bad luck for most of us riding today, the Sportsman was crashed into a tree and wrecked all the front end stuff (racks and radiator guards). Friend's Z400 bent the rear brake rotor and his a-arm. My YFZ made it out just fine though:D .