Sluggish cart, regular maintenance?

[Jonathanengr]

Hi, all! I actually signed up for this forum to see about adding 12v lights to my cart and found my answer searching--thanks so much!

However, I do have one other problem that I had planned to get to. I have an EZGO cart that I bought used, and I think it's a 1998 (can find out for sure this weekend). We bought the cart about 1.5 years ago and they installed brand new batteries before we took it home. Over time, it has gotten more and more sluggish, and sometimes I think it's not going to make it up a hill we traverse fairly often. I do have a charging meter, and after a charge it shows full volts, so what do you think?

1) I can take my voltmeter and see what the true system voltage is overall. What should it be for fully charged batteries?
2) Could I have one bad battery causing a problem? Should I check each individual battery for voltage? What should they be at full charge?
3) I have never owned a cart, and the guy I bought it from didn't clue me in on maintenance. I've never checked the water level in the batteries (will do that this weekend), and have always let them run all of the way down before charging (thought it would be like other rechargeable batteries). Found out about these items from reading posts here.
4) Is there other maintenance I should be doing? Is there something other than the batteries that could be causing this problem?

Thanks in advance for any insight and/or input you guys can give me!

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by Jonathanengr

Hi, all! I actually signed up for this forum to see about adding 12v lights to my cart and found my answer searching--thanks so much!

However, I do have one other problem that I had planned to get to. I have an EZGO cart that I bought used, and I think it's a 1998 (can find out for sure this weekend). We bought the cart about 1.5 years ago and they installed brand new batteries before we took it home. Over time, it has gotten more and more sluggish, and sometimes I think it's not going to make it up a hill we traverse fairly often. I do have a charging meter, and after a charge it shows full volts, so what do you think?

1) I can take my voltmeter and see what the true system voltage is overall. What should it be for fully charged batteries?
2) Could I have one bad battery causing a problem? Should I check each individual battery for voltage? What should they be at full charge?
3) I have never owned a cart, and the guy I bought it from didn't clue me in on maintenance. I've never checked the water level in the batteries (will do that this weekend), and have always let them run all of the way down before charging (thought it would be like other rechargeable batteries). Found out about these items from reading posts here.
4) Is there other maintenance I should be doing? Is there something other than the batteries that could be causing this problem?

Thanks in advance for any insight and/or input you guys can give me!

The stuff in red is the cause of your depleted performance.

Batteries charged when low on water die faster than fish out of water

[shadowman]

welcome to BGW i hope not but theres a good chance your batteries are now shot.........won,t be the 1st time this has happened.....................you really need to break them in right from the start and you have to do monthly maintence otherwise well you end up where your at..............an expensive lesson.........so when you buy your new set make sure you break them in and make sure you maintain them..............theres a chance you can save them but they will never last as long or be as good as they could have been.....................

[Jonathanengr]

Uuuuuuugh... just my luck!!! So--is there some "definitive" way to tell if they are shot? Obviously if performance is lacking, but something more quantitative like overall voltage at full charge is lower, etc.? I'll check the water this weekend. If it's low, will refilling them help at all?

[rabbitreborn]

The "definative" test for batteries is to do a discharge test, unfortunately the machine for doing it is fairly expensive so you would have to find a dealer that has one to perform the test for you.

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by rabbitreborn

The "definative" test for batteries is to do a discharge test, unfortunately the machine for doing it is fairly expensive so you would have to find a dealer that has one to perform the test for you.

Amen, I love my Discharge machine.

[Jonathanengr]

Boy, oh boy. Well, I'll check, refill, charge and we'll see how they do. Thanks for your help!