Cart charges 2-3 hours only drives 10 minutes

timD

I just bought a 2005, 48 Volt Club Car. It looks to have 3 2013 batteries and 1 2015 batteries. The dealer told me the voltages are all good but I have not checked them myself.
When I charge it goes to 15 amps then drops and turns off in about 2-3 hours. I drive the cart and after about 10 minutes it will no longer drive in my yard and barely makes it up the hill to my garage on the paved driveway. It still seems to drive okay on the level paved portion of the driveway. Hook it up to charger, same 2-3 hours followed by 10 minutes of driving.
I have read other posts and wondering if I have a charger problem, bad batteries, bad computer or if the CPU needs to be reset...no idea where to start. Any help is appreicated.

BGW

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Dale-D

You need to leave the charger plugged in over night, it should turn off by itself
In the morning, unplug the charger and try driving it and see if it is better
You may need to fully charge the batteries a few times before they fully charge
The charger should turn off after 16 hours, then unplug it again and let it cycle again...
Check the water level in ALL BATTERIES, and it should be about 1/2 inch above the plates and NO MORE THEN THAT.........

If you need water in them ONLY USE DISTILLED WATER

hope this helps ya out

Dale D

rib33024

timD

Welcome to BGW

you can to do a OBC reset and see if that helps





Dale-D . He says the cart charges for 2 or 3 hours and turns off. So leaving the charger plugged in all night is not going to do anything.

teecro

First you start by getting voltage readings from all batteries 6 to 12 hours after the charger has turned off by itself if you don't have a resting voltage nearest to 50.9 your not at 100 % SOC. Next you get some total pack voltage readings from the cart while just running along on level ground. Then you get some voltage readings from the pack while the cart is having issues.... Until you have some baseline voltage reading you have nothing to go by....

2ndly any one of us can tell you it is unwise to mix batteries of different age as the new battery will soon be no better than the oldest battery...

As we can see that your cart has 12 volt batteries one needs to make sure that they are all golf cart batteries as many times somebody drops in a marine deep cycle battery as they are cheap... What brand and type are these batteries?

Volt_Ampere

Sounds like bad batteries to me. Take readings as suggested here but if it's fully charged after charging, you are getting almost no capacity which is what happens when the batteries are gonzo.

teecro

Yup....

glassk

Every cart listed for sale has new batteries,....

Muddog

I would suggest calling the dealer you bought the cart from and work out a deal for new batteries.
It's going to need them.
Mixed batteries are trouble.

timD

Thank you for all of the replies. I checked the voltages last night and had 12.5, 12.6, 12.1 and 11.6. I imagine the 50.6 is the sum (I'm at 48. of these or do I test the whole package (is that the first positive and the last negative?). Any tips on how to check it while I am driving it?

The newest battery is a NAPA the others are Trojan. Trojans are T1275 I did not see a number on the NAPA.

Called dealer he told me to take some readings and he would make it right if the batteries are bad. Sounds like I should just swallow the cost of getting all new versus him probably wanting to put in just one NAPA.

Volt_Ampere

11.6 is dead! If the sum doesn't add up, your meter stinks.