Batteries over-charging? Confused.

[acousticallyblue]

Hi--I have a 2004.5 Club Car DS Series, with 6 8-volt batteries made by US Battery (I know, they're not Trojans, but they were new in Nov '09 and I just bought the cart last summer). PowerDrive2 charger.

Two days ago, I washed the cart, including the battery well, and plugged it in to charge and left for several hours. I'm not sure how long I was gone, but when I got back, it was still charging (5 amps) and seemed like it had been too long. I lifted the seat and heard what sounded like a tiny "meep...meep...meep" sound. I checked inside one of the batteries, and it was dry--not water in sight. Other 5 batts were the same. I haven't been as diligent about checking them over the winter, but I've had the cart for almost a year and have never had to add water (checking every couple weeks over the summer/fall). The batteries have always performed very well--21 mph on stock tires with purple PQ motor, and drive around for hours before needing to charge.

I filled the batteries with distilled water (~1/4 inch above plates) and took it for a drive to try to kill the batts. An hour and a half later, I was down only two bars on my digital battery meter. Plugged it in to charge again, and the same thing happened--a few hours later, the charger was still at 5A. I unplugged it and left it overnight.

This morning, I checked the voltages/specific gravities:

Total V: 52.6
Batt V: 8.71, 8.72, 8.72, 8.73, 8.74, 8.75

SpG:
Batt 1: 1.28, 1.28, 1.28, 1.30
Batt 2: 1.29, 1.28, 1.27, 1.29
Batt 3: 1.29, 1.27, 1.27, 1.29
Batt 4: 1.28, 1.28, 1.30, 1.29
Batt 5: 1.27, 1.27, 1.30, 1.27
Batt 6: 1.28, 1.27, 1.27, 1.28

I didn't temperature-correct because the temp was about 70 degrees, and I didn't think the difference was significant. All of the cells would have still been "green."

I checked my voltmeter on my car batt and got 12.8V.

My problems/questions:
1. After looking at the state-of-charge chart, it seems like all of my batteries are too high, but equally so. Is this a problem I should be concerned about?

2. Why won't my charger shut off? It doesn't look like I have any bad cells...could it be the OBC? or maybe the charger? something else?

3. Could my batteries have gone dry because the charger stayed on too long? I hope that was what happened and that I caught it early. It seems strange that they've always been fine and then had these problems at the same time.

Thanks in advance for the help. I know this was long, but I was trying to give you all the info I could to save everybody the trouble of asking a hundred questions.