Golf Cart Batteries
Key To Buying and Maintaining Your Golf Cart Batteries
Golf cart batteries are the power source for your electric golf cart, they are also the highest maintenance part of your cart, and without them you won’t go anywhere. Being stuck on the course with a low charge is not only embarrassing, but it’s not good for your batteries to be run that low on juice either. Let’s go over a few basics of maintaining your cart batteries in good working order, and some tips that will help them last as long as possible. But first let’s go over how to judge the age of the batteries because that makes a difference on what kind of service life we can expect from them.
Many times when you’re looking at a used golf cart, you’ll spend a lot of time looking at the tires, the seats, and other wear related objects while neglecting the most expensive part, the batteries. Replacing batteries that were supposed to be in good condition can be a considerable expense that would have reduced the value of your cart had you known their true age and condition. In most cases the date of manufacture of the golf cart batteries is encoded with a stamp on one of the terminals, look for a letter followed by a number. The letter will be the month that the battery was manufactured, and the number is the last number in the year that the battery was manufactured. In other words, a B1 would been manufactured in February 2011, from that it should be pretty easy to figure out how old your batteries are.
Golf Cart Batteries Can Last Long
Now that you know how old your golf cart batteries are, you’ll need to take that into consideration when looking at the price they’re asking for a used cart. Batteries less than two years old should be able to hold a pretty good charge and have a few years of service left in them, however batteries three or four years old could be nearing the end of their lifetime and may need to be replaced, usually at a fairly considerable expense. If, when you test drive the cart, you notice a lack of power, or possibly a jerky ride, that is something you definitely want to check out. On the other hand if the batteries are fairly new, and you’re are having problems, it would be best to check out the charger or the on-board charging computer for problems.
Since the cost of replacing your golf cart batteries is a fairly large expense, the intelligent thing to do would be to keep them well-maintained and charged in order to get as long of a service life as possible. Keeping them charged doesn’t mean overcharging them as that can cause immediate, permanent damage, so always make sure that the charger automatically reduces the charging amps as the battery nears a full charge preventing damage. Most newer chargers are of the automatic type, check anyway to make sure, to avoid any surprises. Always make sure that your batteries have been fully charged before driving the cart, running them low or completely down can also cause damage or early failure. Another important, and quick maintenance check, is to be sure that the water level is up to the full water line, if not, fill with distilled water, especially after charging.
A final maintenance tip would be to always maintain the top of your batteries in a clean dry manner. You can remove the connectors and scrub them with a small amount of baking soda and water, then dry with paper towels, followed by a quick spray of WD-40 lubricant to the connectors. Then, wipe any excess lubricant with another clean paper towel after connecting everything together.
No matter what you do, your golf cart batteries won’t last forever, however, keeping them properly charged, clean, full of water, and the connectors properly lubricated will ensure that you gain the full maximum service life possible of up to five years or more.