Have a 99 suzuki intruder 1500. Have replaced the battery 3 times. The battery keeps dying and I'm dying on the inside. So frustrating. Could the timing be off? I even replaced the starter thinking it was the problem, but it's not the starte. Help

My friend ... you say you have replaced the battery three times ... My first thought is a MC battery lasts about 3 years . 3X3 = 9 years ... you have had excellent service getting 12 years from three batteries. But alas, I think you are saying you have replaced three batteries one right after another ... and you did this recently. You say you suspect the timing ... not the problem The time your engine fires has little to do with battery health. Next you say you suspect the starter ... the starter is a motor that you control with a switch ... it either runs or it doesn't run ... it too has little to do with battery health. I suspect there is something wrong with your Suzuki involving either the alternator or the rectifier. The inside of the rectifier you would find a bridge made up of probably 4 diodes. A diode is a one way switch that allows power to flow from A to B but not B to A. This allows the output from your alternator (AC power (Alternating Current)) to be "rectified" into a kind of power that looks to the battery like DC (Direct Current). Your motorcycle actually runs off the battery ... the alternator's job is to keep the battery charged. (By the way, you have to put power into a alternator to get power out of it since an alternator is normally not "self exciting". If your battery is dead, even if running, you are not making electricity to charge the battery.) If one or more of the diodes are shorted in the rectifier, that allows power to go from A to B and B to A. When this happens, power doesn't become "DC" to go into the battery, actually, it goes back to ground sort of like a short. That will 'kill' your battery. First off, the battery power is used up by the motorcycle, second, the alternator cannot charge the battery because its product (AC) is going to ground.

You can test your rectifier with a flash light battery, a flash light lamp and a paper clip. Disconnect the rectifier from the wire harness. If you put one end of the paper clip on the bottom of the battery, one end of the light on the other end of the battery, then touch the other end of the paper clip to the edge of the lamp. The light will light. Now, run the power through one terminal on the rectifier - out another terminal until the light works. ID the terminals. Then reverse the polarity. The light should not illuminate ... if it does, that means power is flowing through the diode both directions and makes your rectifier suspicious. Check all combinations of the various terminals you find on the rectifier ... (possibly up to 4 terminals or more).

If you don't want to do all this stuff, you can take the motorcycle (or the rectifier) to your local motorcycle repair shop and have it tested, probably for no or little charge.

Oh yea, your alternator could be bad, but I doubt it.

Good luck to you on this repair. Do not dispare.

Thanks for your question @ FixYa.com