Any electric golf cart gurus?

[Georgiadawgs78]

I bought a 1998 Club Car DS 48vfor a pretty good deal. The batteries are around a year old but they haven't been taken care of and the cart was completely dead when I got it and has been dead for 6-8 months. They basically put new batteries in it and ran in a few times then let it sit and go so dead the charger wouldn't kick on and left it sitting.

So long story short I bought it home and just started each battery till the main charger kicked on. I got it kicked on around lunch one day and let it charge til about 5 or so and then took it for a spin and it ran good but could tell it wasn't fully charged. But I ran it prob a mile or so and it didn't have any problems. Well I charged it that night and come out and charger off so I unplugged and plugged back up and when I came home from work it was off again. So I took it for a ride and got 20 yards and knew it wasn't going to make it anywhere. So I parked if and it barley made it back up the slight hill. So I plugged charger up and let it charge for 45 minutes and drove it and it was weak but I made it 200 yards down to the parents and back but again barely made it up the hill.

So I charged over night, the charger cut off sometime during the night, and tested the batteries this morning. The first 4 read 8.2, the 5th read 7.2, and the 6th read 4.6 Total voltage was 46 and some change. I could tell when I tried to drive it wasn't going to make it so I didn't even try. It felt like it was kinda vibrating when driving it back up the incline to park it and I had to help push it up the slight hill.

The last two were the ones they had the lights and radio hooked up to, but I disconnected them when I got the cart to make sure they weren't drawing the batteries down.

I tested the battery charger on the batteries and it was at 52v when charging. And the 4 good batteries were testing at 9v or so.

My question is one bad battery and one weak battery enough to not let the cart really run at all? And why did it run so good right out the gate the first time but not run since then? I'm swaying more towards just replacing all 6 batteries since these were never maintained right to begin with. But I don't want to spend $600-$700 on batteries and have a bad computer or motor or something. Also anybody know of any place in NE Ga with good battery deals?

Sorry for all the rambling and thanks in advance for any help.

 

[T-N-T]

Try taking the 2 bad ones out and replacing with a good 12 volt. If it runs better, then you know battery replacement will help you.
But I bet new batteries will be all you need.
You could change out the 2 with new 8 volts. It will not last as long as changing all the batteries. But it is cheaper and will last a while. But changing them all is best.

 

[T-N-T]

And I know that a 12 volt battery is the same as the last 2 added together. But, a good battery will be in place of 2 "bad" ones

 

[Arrow Flinger]

I had the same issue with my 36 volt cart when I bought it . Yes. A bad battery and especially two will cause major problems. I would replace the two bad 8 volts with new lower end batteries. That's what I did 3 years ago and it still is running strong. You should be running way over 48 volts at full charge. 46 volts will not cut it.

 

[rjcruiser]

You should be pushing 52-53 v when charged. And yes....one battery can keep you from running at all.

You could go 4 12s...but your run time will be less than 6 8s. How far are you from covington? Saw a friend on Facebook post that odessey battery in covington sells reconditioned batts....not sure about them, but might be worth a chance.

 

[Georgiadawgs78]

Thanks guys!!

I'd say Covington is close to 1.5 hours away from me but there's a few places around me that sells refurbs/blems and so fourth. Think I'm going to try and find two cheap ones to replace the other two and make sure that is my problem. Hopefully it is and I can get a couple years out of the ones I got before I have to buy a whole new set. I'll post back when I get them replaced.

 

[T-N-T]

That's a nice cart

 

[southernman13]

No doubt even one bad battery will kill it. You show 5or6volts in a bad one at rest. If you put a load on it. It will drop like crazy. U can chain it to a tree then put your meter on each battery and drive forward pullin against the chain and see why the voltage drops to. I bet it goes way down under a load. Same clubs usual has pretty good pricing on their batteries as well.

 

[Georgiadawgs78]

Thanks, hit up J&J battery in statham today and grabbed just one battery for the time being. If you are needing some batteries they have some pretty good deals on them. They have a few different knock offs to choose from ($79-$89) then the Trojan 875s for like $105 I think. Plus batteries for anything else.

Anyways, slapped the battery in and took off for a test spin with my youngin, ran good. Then loaded it down when the wife got home with 5 people, two kids and three adults for 800# plus, and it still ran good. So needless to say the one dead battery killed the whole cart.

I put the charger on it for a while and then hit it with my voltmeter and all the batteries are hitting 8.5-8.6 volts but the one weak battery I left in, it was reading 8.3. Don't know if it's worth $90 to swap it out or just let it ride out till it dies.

Now I just got to install the voltage reducer and fuse block that came in the mail today so I wire up the radio and lights the right way.

 

[southernman13]

Did u load test
Them or read voltage at rest? You can't tell anything unless you read voltage present under a load test. Also check specific gravity with a tester once they're charged

 

[Georgiadawgs78]

Did u load test
Them or read voltage at rest? You can't tell anything unless you read voltage present under a load test. Also check specific gravity with a tester once they're charged

No I haven't yet, didn't have time. I had to go out of town but should have time this weekend to do that as well as install my voltage converter and fuse block and get a radio going. Don't have the specific gravity tester so I would have to get one but the guy at the battery store sucked up the battery acid in something and said he had a series charger and he could bring that battery back to life in a day or two most likely so if that's what he had I would say we are good there since the bad battery tested good enough to bring it back.