primary concerns

heffercow

hello all. im new here so i will give a little background first.

i recently acquired a 96 club car ds (i think... i searched here and found serial list, mine is a9612......), anyways i got it after trading a guy for some jeep axles. he said it ran fine when he got about a year and a half ago and he drove it til the batteries died and it sat ever since then. i picked it up a few weeks ago and the thing didnt move. got a used 48v charger off craiglist plugged it in and nothing. so did some more research and determined maybe the batteries were just too dead for the charger, so i charged them two at a time (series) with a 12v charger. after this i put them back in the cart wired em all up plugged in the 48v charger and crossed my fingers.... nothing. so i figured what the hell its worth a shot and with the cart charger plugged in i also connected the 12v charger in jump start mode (lotta amps at once instead of a few for charging it). waited a few seconds and the cart charger started up. let it charge for a while, and now the cart moves again. all of this brings you up to date where it currently is now.

sorry for the novel i wrote, just wanted yall to have the facts. so heres my questions.
1.what if any are the problem areas associated with these carts? what should i check/keep an eye out for?

2.at first the charger was staying on high amperages for long periods of time while charging. lately it has gotten to where it will drop down to 3 or 4 amps while charging. i know it is supposed to shut its self off once its done. does the fact that it is staying on mean one or more of my batteries is bad? would i be able to tell which using multimeter?

3.probably not the best method but i used my gps to determine that it travels about 12-13 mph on flat ground with the pedal fully depressed. and going down hill the governor/speed control kicks in at 15 mph. does this sound right? ive never had a cart before but it just seems like its struggling.

im planning on fixing it up since it looks a little rough right now, but i want to make sure everything is solid before i start messing with cosmetics. so thanks for any help.

BGW

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roady89

If it has on OBC keep an eye on that. Other than that its about the same as any other cart. Keep the batteries wattered and cables clean and tight.


Anytime batteries sit for a long period of time completly dead its bad news. Sorry, you'll likely need new batts before long. They might be fine for a little while but not very long runs. Check all your cable connections real good too. You can check each batt individually, do so after at least an hour after charging.



That sounds about right. Get the batts up to snuff and it may be better. Sounds like you have a regen cart.

heffercow

thanks for the help. im pretty sure the batteries wont charge all the way and thats why the charger wont shut off. immediate after charging it feeels a lot faster gets 15 mph on flat ground after about ten minutes there is a defent decrease in speed down to around 12 on flat ground. so i guess i will be looking for batteries.

also i was trying to figure out which regen system i have and i cant seem to locate a tow/run switch anywhere. should there definitely be a switch or did these not come on earlier models?

scottyb

96 did not have a run tow switch....

heffercow

thats what i figured thanks