'97 DS Low Torque/Acceleration

thinkxingu

Hi All,
New guy here--I searched and searched, so please forgive me if this is covered elsewhere.
Got an electric '97 DS (serial #A9731591668, 48V) that came as part of a summer camp purchase. Unit sat for a bit, so put in some load-tested used batteries and here's what's happening: when I depress accelerator I can hear a click and the car will start moving, but it's slow to pick up speed. At speed seems ok, but acceleration is fairly slow. Also, I'm not sure it has the power to get up anything more than the slightest of hills.

Can someone suggest what I might start to look at, or if there are common things that might be the answer?

Thanks, all!

S

BGW

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mrgolf

Are the batteries fully charged. They can load test and still be low on charge.

thinkxingu

Hi! Yes, sorry--I charged it all last night.

jjance

Can you push it by hand on level ground?

thinkxingu

Push it by hand on level ground? I haven't tried it since putting the new batteries in, but I could pretty easily when the old (dead) batteries were in it. And with brake off, of course.

jakesnake27

If it is easy to push then the brakes are not dragging so that is not your problem...
This sounds like a battery issue. How old are the batts?
I would hook your DVM to each one individually and press the pedal and see if any of them drop considerably...

thinkxingu

Ok, so there's nothing in the cart that would prevent torque? Specifically, that if the pedal is depressed and the cart starts moving, everything is working correctly and that the batteries' power would dictate torque/acceleration?

jakesnake27

It could be a throttle problem (v-glide, pot box). We need to know a little more about the cart. Does it have a shift knob or a rocker switch for the FR switch? Is there a black pie shaped box in between the batteries on the drivers side(v-glide), or is there a black throttle box (potentiometer) under the cart?

thinkxingu

The forward/reverse is a black box with a push switch on top. Between the driver's side set of batteries and middle set there is a black pie-shaped box that seems to connect to the throttle pedal.

jakesnake27

Ok, so you've got a Regen cart with a V-Glide throttle control. You can take the cover off of the v-glide and check that the wiper arm is making a full motion and contacting each copper bad. If not, you won't get full throttle.