Early Precedent models.....?

[anziosaint]

So I have been building custom carts for a few seasons now and have started to notice some odd differences in some of the precedents i have built. (I love to build the precedent because they are so easy to do) So I picked up a couple of carts, 1 an 04 and the other a 05 in late summer and stashed them in the pole barn for winter projects. I have only built 08's and up prior and just finished my second 08 yesterday. I started tearing into this 04 and noticed the battery bucket is different where the seat hinges are. I found this out because of course the plastic is broken and the hinges were not working properly. Looks like a poor design that club car remedied later on as the 08s are different. No worries I found a repair kit/bracket specifically to fix this. NEXT, i noticed while spraying down the undercarriage that these early carts have support brackets in the rear wheel wells just behind the tires that the 08's do not have. I then noticed that the 04 and 05 both have steel skid plates protecting the rear differential! The dash is also different although i dont know if it is any better, just different. I liked the idea of support brackets an the skid plat was a welcome surprise. I built a 12 last season and it had a crappy particle board seat bottom that was heavy and not nearly as robust as the old plastic seat bases. It seems to me that the precedent has gotten cheaper over the years?

So, did the skid plates come from the factory or what? Why did they scrap the support brackets in the rear? and what caused the dash to change. I obviously know why the battery buckets changed as they were a poor design. I will miss the plastic front seat bottoms too.

Here are a few of my builds from last season!

[NoleFan4Ever]

'04-'08 was the first generation (4x12v, dash, IQ). '08.5 and up was another (6x8v, dash, I2/Excel ('08.5/'09's had TPS and some were IQ and some were Excel)). Not sure about the skid plates. But I was never a fan of the electronics being between the batteries.