ough as it might be to accept, once a battery has become sulfated, that’s it. Game over, it’s time for a replacement. And no matter what you might read or hear, there’s no battery charger that’s going to repair that damage. You just can’t bring a sulfated battery back to life, restored it to its original fully charged old self. It’s not going to happen, and that’s coming straight from the battery engineers themselves. No matter what anyone tells you, no amount of magic “pulsating voltage” is going to make a bit of difference to a sulfated battery.

Deltran’s four-bank Battery Tender offers constant-current charging for up to four different batteries.

Here’s why. Sulfation occurs when a battery is left to sit idle and undercharged for a given time, allowing the heavy material (lead-sulfates in solution with the battery acid) to drop to the bottom of the battery case. That heavy material builds up and will stratify in layers, eventually eroding the paste material away from the battery plates, even forming a bridge of sulfate crystals between the plates causing a short. When that erosion takes place that’s it, the battery is shot. Period. It’s time to replace it.

Here’s the latest in the Deltran lineup.

Can a battery charger de-sulfate a battery and restore it to full power? Not hardly. Think of the de-sulfation process as removing rust from a fender. You might be able to get rid of the rust, but so what? If you don’t replace it with something all you’ll end up with is a bigger, rusty hole. Same thing with a battery. No battery charger, not even a Battery Tender, can repair plate damage once sulfation has done its thing. The engineers at Deltran have worked with battery designers and their engineering staffs for years, and every time they ask about de-sulfation the answer is always the same: “If the battery is sulfated, trash it and buy a new one.” And if you were able to somehow de-sulfate a battery how long do you think it would last? The only guarantee you have is that when you’re out riding with a marginal battery it’s going to fail, and do it at the most inappropriate time. Not a fuzzy feeling to get those “click-click” blues when you know the inconvenience was self-inflicted. Bottom line, if you think a customer’s battery might be marginal and sulfated put in a new one. Trying to stretch an extra day or week out of a compromised battery isn’t worth the effort.

The Waterproof Battery Tender is perfect for ATVs, PWCs, motorcycles and boats—anything powersport that might get wet.

What is worth the effort, though, is preventing that sulfation from ever occurring, and you already know how to do that. Or you should. Keep a battery hooked up to a Battery Tender and you’ll get years of reliable service out of it, simple as that. Do your customers a favor. When you sell them a replacement battery for that sulfated junker sell them a Battery Tender to go with it. Parts Unlimited has it all, too—the batteries and the Battery Tenders. Give your rep a call.

The lightweight, compact Battery Tender® Junior is a fully automatic two-stage lead-acid battery charger is ideal for hard-to-reach spots.