2017 Ezgo 2five slow uphill speed.

Dom1776

Hello.
I recently purchased a new ezgo 2five primarily for use on golf course and transit a mile or two from home. I've used it several times and it currently has about 50 miles in it. It seems to operate fine on flat surfaces, although initial acceleration is less than I'm accustomed to in an electric cart. On hills however performance degrades considerably. On course hills are average slope, enough to make me slightly winded when walking the course but not remarkable. Yesterday with about half a battery charge indicated the cart would only travel about 5 mph going up the grade. With a full charge the drop off hasn't been as severe but is still considerable. This is my first cart purchase. Is this normal for this type of cart or is there someway to achieve better performance?
Thank you for your consideration and input.

BGW

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FluxCapacitor

I also have a 2017 2Five and that does not sound quite normal.

My 2Five accelerates better than all other stock electric carts (except RXV) and maintains speed really well on hills (with passengers too). Even the worst hill here won't slow my 2Five below 15-20 mph.

Here is my suggestions:

I did notice a significant improvement in performance after the first few charges as the batteries broke in. You may notice some performance improvements as the battery and cart breaks-in

I read here that the disc brakes on some 2Fives have been set too tight from the factory causing drag. All wheels should spin freely when the cart is jacked up (at least mine do).

The 2Five battery meter is not as accurate as I would like. I (and others) have noted that when the meter shows half full its actually much closer to empty. Maybe take a battery voltage reading next time when reading half full and see the real capacity.

Dom1776

Thank you much for the input. I'll put your suggestions to work and see how it goes.

cgtech

Your brakes are adjusted too tight, dealer can make adjustment at bellcrank. Common problem, easy fix. The "gets worse as it warms up" part is a dead giveaway.

BobInPTC

I had the "brakes adjusted too tight" issue when I first bought my 2Five in 2011. It only happened when the temperature warmed up and the wheel hubs would be very hot to the touch and I also got a burning brake shoes smell. The adjustment on the rod from the master cylinder was very easy; the rod should have a slightly loose feel when you grab it.

Based on Dom1776's post however, I do not think the brake issue is the cause of the slow uphill speed.

I say that, because I recently got my 19,000 mile 2 Five out of the shop after being repaired... (about 2 months ago it suddenly "died" on the cart path here in Peachtree City after I had tapped the brakes .There was a slight "pop" and the cart coasted to a stop and the accelerator was non-responsive.)
Once it was trailered to the shop, the troubleshooting ended up being basically a nightmare for the techs. From what I was told on my weekly calls about the status, the controller was changed for new parts several times with no results. Finally after over a month, the tech started looking for other causes and ended up replacing the throttle switch ,a Solenoid ,the brake light relay and a rotary POS sensor (I'm reading from the Invoice :)) and finally had success with getting the 2Five to move again. In case you are wondering, they said they did try my old controller with these new parts but it wouldn't work then. I was also told my batteries were at the end of their life, so I bit the bullet and sprung for the 6x8 conversion which I had wanted to do anyway.

So, after all this, when I picked up the cart, I immediately noticed two (actually 3) things...

1) The previous awesome acceleration was gone; now it acted like it was in turtle mode except that it would eventually get up to 25 mph.
In addition; the hill climbing was exactly as described by DOM1776. It used to absolutely FLY up hills, but now it would actually lose speed as it climbed and flooring the pedal makes no difference at all. Previously I almost never floored the pedal... now I have to do very frequently when on the road just to not get run over by traffic .

2) The battery gauge (despite the batteries having been charged) dropped to show 1/2 charge within the first 20 feet. Now I have been through about 15 charge cycles and the gauge drops to 50% every time. I seem to be able to drive for 10 - 15 miles without the gauge dropping more than a few more notches but I never had this issue before. I was told by both the tech and the EZGO representative I called a few weeks ago that this was normal and after about 100 charge cycles the gauge would act "normally". We'll see; but this hasn't happened since when I first got it 6 years ago when EZGO acknowledged there was a software issue that was soon fixed after an update.

3) Finally, after "charging" overnight, the red led fault light was blinking 6 times. I plugged it back in and it then completed the charge, but the 6 fault code lights have occurred over half the attempts at charging so I'm not sure what is going on but I'll be taking the cart back in after the new year.

As far as the poor acceleration, I took it back to the dealer/repair shop the next day and the technician plugged in a programmer but said that the controller was a Danaher and there was no option to re-program a more aggressive acceleration curve.

I called a warranty representative at EZ-GO and was told that the controller should be a Curtis (not a Danaher!) so I've been trying to take pictures of it and send to him for identification. He must be on vacation though (Christmas break) since I'm not able to contact him lately.

Bottom line; my 2011 2Five seems to have been "converted" to the same performance (even down to the way the gauge works!) as Dom1776's!

I will definitely let the forum know what comes of all this, as it may give a valuable clue as to why we suddenly have the phenomenon of slow accelerating 2Fives with such weak torque that they can't maintain speed going up hills.

BobBoyce

BobInPTC

E-Z-GO does not seem to have a good supply of dealers that are 2Five certified. The 2Five is titled as an LSV/NEV (low speed vehicle/neighborhood electric vehicle), so the dealers that sell and work on them must be a car dealer in most states. A 2011 2Five should have come equipped with a Danaher controller. Because the 2Five has a different rear end gear ratio than the RXV, it will have slower acceleration, and a higher top end (25 MPH) in rabbit mode.

When they converted your 2Five to 6 X 8V, they may have used too low of an A/H rated set of 8V batteries. The Danaher controller is more current limited in throughput than the Curtis controller version, and crippling it further with lower A/H batteries could cause your problem.

From the description of your charging issue, it does sound like your Charger/Converter may be having a problem. There is a somewhat common issue with the harness connector on the 2Five Charger/Converter, at the higher current pins. The onboard Charger/Converter can exceed the current rating of the connector and cause a failure of that connector on the harness and/or the Charger/Converter.

Be aware that a new set of batteries will have a break-in period where performance will be more limited. If your Charger/Inverter is causing problems during this break-in period, it could cause permanent damage to your new batteries.

If you continue to have trouble, keep in touch. I'm not that far away, and I am very familiar with the 2Fives. I also have the equipment required to communicate with the controllers in them. I'm just not too keen of getting anywhere near Atlanta during the holidays. LOL

I was an LSV/NEV manufacturer up until I closed my shop in December of 2016. I have some parts and harnesses for the 2Five left over from a 2015 2Five that I repaired last year for E-Z-GO. Their guys could not figure out the problem. It turned out to be a brand new replacement controller that was defective.

Bob

BobInPTC

Thanks for the response. The replacement batteries are Trojan T875s, if that helps. I am indeed very concerned about damage to these expensive brand new batteries by having the overnight charges fail so many times. When that's happened I've in-plugged / and plugged the extension cord and kept trying until I get what looks like a good charge (light glowing green). As a result, I've hardly driven it since getting it back from the repair . It seems like I'm getting the 6 red fault codes about 40% of the time. I'm definitely suspecting the wiring as a probable fault since it seems to charge after I jiggle the wires around. I'll try to contact the EZ-Go warranty representative again and probably take it back to the shop in a few days. By the way, there was a used 2016 2Five with the 6 8v setup at the dealer so I drove it around the parking lot just to see if the 6x8s were all slow. It picked up as fast as mine used to ; night and day with how mine drives now.

BobInPTC

A follow-up. The cause of my 2five's sluggishness and inability to maintain speed going uphill ended up being some (recalled) Trogan Battery cables that had been installed as part of my 4 to 6 battery conversion. The tip-off was when I noticed the cables were pretty hot . The shop that had done the conversion immediately changed the cables and the difference was dramatic to say the least! Now the cart accelerates as it used to.