Checked Out PDS Safety Features Today.

[Gale Hawkins]

Most of the snow is gone and the ground is settling up so I took the 2007 PDS off road today on some steep but short hills.

I had never really checked out the PDS anti roll features. IF you come to a complete stop for a few seconds they seem to become ‘enabled’.

It will beep if it starts rolling forward when in Neutral or Forward (think it does the same if in reverse but may not have tested that today). The steepest test was at about a 35 degree angle and the forward motion was limited to around the 2 MPH per the manual. Going up the same features worked going backwards when tested as per the manual.

If you jumped out with it moving the forward braking will not apply but backwards it does. It seems the cart has to be at rest for at least a few seconds for this safety feature to become ‘set’ to protect against roll off going forward.

The batteries were fully charged, the BatteryMINDer had been used for 10 days and I had replaced the 5 interconnecting 4 gauge OEM cables with new like pulls of the same gauge but they were like new with the silver soldered ends that are very heavy compared to the old ones that were getting very thin due to acid over the years. Some of the old cables were getting ‘fat’ because of all of the green powder build up in the fine strands making up the cable. With the good heat shrink and the wires in the ends now as one due to the silver solder I do not think the new cables will be as bad to do this.

It actually did very much better than I expected. It is not like gas in that you have to get it more ‘gas’ on hills. Just a little pedal where on the flat or 35 degree slope would make the cart go just fine. I could make it spin out by flooring the pedal on the step hills but even going down it would stop with just the brakes without sliding. I am looking at some turf saver type tires for the rears even though the golf cart tread is still about 85% on the rear and even better on the fronts.

Of course setting the brakes is still a good habit to get into but it is nice to know it works like the manual states it should with the kids using it. While the manual states the cart with the steep hill chip should come to a complete stop in time with the foot off of the ‘gas’ it will only slow it from 13 MPH to 10 MPH when you remove your foot from the pedal but at does help but 10 MPH seems pretty fast going down a steep bumpy hill.