Fully charged battery needs jump start?

percival

Hi: Battery weak form sitting too long as
it won't turn the engine over but will with a
jump start. I have a charger (2amp) that
doesn't work or the battery's dead or something
else because after use the club car still needs a jump
start to get the engine turning over. I purchase a new
charger with voltmeter which as soon as I hook
it up to the battery shows an appropriate 12.6 Volts
and displays the battery's 100% charged. Club car
still needs a jump start to get going. Check new
charger on a lawn mower battery I just bought
and added acid to and it also is supposedly at
12.6 Volts and fully charged. I'm beginning to
feel like my brain is overcharged. Support at the
battery charger company says charger is faulty.
A new charger arrives. Yup. 12.6 Volts and fully
charged! Lights do come on bright but starter
will not budge until I jump start.

BGW

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lockman1

First off, you should tell us what year and cart you have until we get to know you better!
So... a quick search tells me you have a 2007 XRT810
That being said... you really should have replaced your battery first before buying a new charger!

Yep... your battery may "seem to be" fully charged,
BUT... you should have it "load tested", (any auto parts store can do that free for you!)
because I'm guessing that it's lived it's life, and it just can't take the pressure anymore!

I have a 2007 XRT550 Lynx (upgraded DS) and I just replaced my original battery last year,
It did almost the same thing yours is doing, and a new battery fixed mine!

.02

Volt_Ampere

12.6 isn't fully charged.

rib33024

No 12.6 is not fully charged, that's only about 87% charged, a fully charged 12v battery is 12.73, just because the meter says it fully charged don't mean the battery is good. When you put a load on it, like the starter, it could drop to way below what it need to start the motor. Take your DVM/ volt meter, and hook it to your battery and try to crank the motor and see what the volts drop to, that will tell the story, is all your cables clean and tight, how long was the battery off the charger when you took the reading of the battery?, to get true reading the battery volts it needs to be off the charger for around 12 hours to get a true reading. How old is the battery?

percival

You guys are great. Yes, probably should have bought
a battery first as yes, I do have a '07 XRT810 (Thanks
for looking it up and I should have put that in the text)
with what is probably the original battery; got the cub
second hand so the battery's 6 years old and sat for
months no doubt too. Even if it's not dead it probably
would be in ther near future.
Now, after letting it sit for 18 hours the battery shows
12.7 volts (display would show 12.8 next [no hundreths])
and upon turning the key to attempt to crank (starter
doesn't make a peep) it shows no change in voltage. Turning
on the headlights dropped the voltage to 12.4. The voltmeter is
integrated into the charger and it displays the voltage as
soon as the charger is hooked up. So when I switch the
charger to 2 amp charge it no longer reports 100% charged but
now displays 40% and commences to start charging. After
charging for 20 minutes or so it's at 13.9V and 65% charged.
The 1st charger did this too and brought the charge up to
100% after over 12 hours during which time I thought it might
be "desulfating" the battery -something referred to in the
instructions that the charger could detect and attempt to rectify
without indicating as far as I could tell that it was doing it.
Didn't change a thing.
Cables are clean and secure. Just occurred to me that
after I jump started the club car yesterday I used it maybe
20 minutes. If I'm thinking right after 20 minutes the generator
should have done some charging if the voltage regulator is
working but when I turned the club car off and tried starting,
nothing.
I'll see about getting the battery checked out. Thanks

gornoman

You need a standalone digital voltmeter to troubleshoot a battery correctly.

simple man

Try turning on the headlights and then try starting the cart. If the headlights go out, then your battery is toast or you have a bad connection. I've seen perfectly looking battery cables that had bad connections inside of the terminal ends. Like " Gorno " said you really need a multimeter to check for voltage drops, voltage under load, etc. They're pretty cheap and you can get one at any auto parts store, Walmart, Bestbuy, Radio Shack, Target, - - - -!

percival

Getting a multimeter later today and plan
on rechecking the connections and trying
the light test. Thanks again.

percival

OK. Before running out to get the multimeter
I let the charger finish its 2 Amp cycle and
tried the cart and it starts right up! Mystified
but happy I go for a victory ramp and tuck
it in for the night. Late the next morning I
finally found an excuse to start it up and use
it and nothing; won't turn over or even click.
Get a multimeter which displays 12.9 Volts. Going
past a auto parts store anyways so I take the
battery along and it flunks. Rated CCA (not sure
what that is) of 500 with a measured CCA of
271. The tester there finds the voltage to be 12.85.
Pretty darn close to the inexpensive multimeter. I
leave without buying a replacement as I've got a
coupon being sent to me to save by buying
online and picking it up at the store. Online they
can't find a replacement battery and recommend I
take it to the store. Anyone know a replacement
battery from a major battery manufactorer? 2007 XRT810
Thanks

lockman1

My cart originally came with a Group 70 (size) battery, and 3 places I went to didn't stock them,
I measured the battery tray and found I could fit a Group 75 (slightly longer) in it, so I bought that!
It was a tight fit... but it fit!

Here's a chart of battery group numbers that show physical battery sizes,
note your original battery group size, and try to find one that is the closest!

http://www.rtpnet.org/~teaa/bcigroup.html

Hope this helps!

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