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.