Elec Club Car Gold Cart-rather long

Electric Golf Cart Problem
1. Purchased a used Club Car cart last season so ailing wife could tour our acerage to view and savor her plants and flowers.
2. Cart is 20 years old and ran rather jerkily, but dealer said batteries had another two years or so
3. Battery indicator showed needed charging, hooked up provided CC charger and it showed charging at 15 (amps?) for two days???
4. Watered all 6 batteries, all taking some distilled water.
5. Bought and used a hygrometer, it said batteries needed charging.
6. Hooked up charger again, again 15, no backing off in several hours.
7. Decided it must need new batteries as several showed only 2-3 volts potential.
8. Decided while figuring out when and where to get batteries, to replace the speed control module to smooth out the jerky ride. Repair quickly and correctly came but it took all winter to install due to my stiff hands, cold floor and general put-off-to-later lifestyle. Got the controller (upgrade) installed, reconnected batteries, no movement of cart? OK , wondered if batteries too low, or I didnt get the connections back together tightly, although they appeared properly snapped together.
9. Connected the charger up again.nothing showed on gage? Noticed tiny 15 amp rocker switch on front panel looked broken, cant rock it on or off.
10. So, if the charger is inoperative (computer controlled it says on the panel), is this the problem?
11. Where to find experienced service (of the computer controlled charger?

Sounds like your batteries need replacing, don't listen to dealer. The charger needs to sense voltage from the batteries to turn on, charger is probably ok if it worked before. Small switch I think may switch between run and charging but not sure.
If there is a golf course near you contact them, they may be able to put you in touch with a service person. I wouldn't trust the dealer you bought it from.

You're probably already aware that most modern chargers won't try to charge batteries if the voltage of the batteries is too low. The solution is often to charge the batteries with an old-style (dumb, no computer) charger to bring them up to some voltage that the modern charger will recognize.

What does a volt meter show? Only place to start.

Ia Leo.
Since you said the Club Car is~ 20 yrs old is it a Precedent or is it the DS series cart? The precedent has the rounded nose and the DS series is more squared off on the front.
Is it by any chance a resistor cart that has the wire coils for voltage reduction for the slower speed ranges.
Was the speed controller you replaced called a V-glide and has different steps in the speed controller inside?
Club Cars about that age used what was known as an OBC--on board controller. This is what really controls the charging rate of the charger and also tells it when to turn off if the voltage reaches a set point of ~42-45 volts for the 36 volt and ~ 54 for the 48 volt carts. It is the brain for the charger. The OBC can be bypassed but that is a whole other subject that requires some doing.

The negative (black) wire to the battery pack passes through a hole in the center of the OBC. The OBC has to sense at least 28 volts in the battery pack before it will start the charger and if it does not sense the set voltage at the end it will time out after a maximum of 16 hours. You may need to take a regular style battery charger, not a smart charger and charge the batteries individually or in pair till you get enough voltage in them to add up to~ 28-30 volts then try your Club Car charger on them



The best and most accurate way to tell the state of charge of a battery is a specific gravity test done with a hydrometer. A good cell will register ~1.250-1.260 and all the cells should be reading within.50 of each other if all are good. A gravity reading below 1.2 is pretty much a dead cell. Older batteries usually do not charge much above 15 amps because the plates are about all sulphated or used up as some would say.
Some Club Car carts had a switch for using to disconnect the system to protect the controller and it was labeled tow or run on the different sides of the switch and needed to be in the tow position if the cart was pushed or pulled other than by the battery power of itself.

This information is from working on Club Carts for 8!/2 years at local golf course here.

Whut he said.

If the static voltage check good load it up and record the voltage. By the time you drag out a hydrometer I would know good are bad so no use in wasting my time using a poor mans test checking each cell. All you are doing with a hydrometer is confirming what you already should know. If you already don't know then study up its right there in front of you.

I agree with Ralph, Ohio.. Each battery has to be close to its 6 volt or 12 volt charge.. Unhook each battery and check and if need be charge?? Get your voltage and hook all together and charge with the golf-carts big charger.. Your big charger will not charge if your battery are not close to their voltage.. If they do-not charge , you need new or a different good battery..

Where to find experienced service (of the computer controlled charger?

Move to Florida near a retirement village that has many electric golf carts or go to a golf course that has electric GC.
Don't go to Florida's villages, they all use gas golf carts.

12 years ago I bought an end of the year Kawasaki 4010 mule for the boss. She loves it. She drives it all the time.. It can easily haul 100 gallons of water if she needs to water the flowers too far from the house..

I would recommend you install all new batteries before replacing any parts.

I have converted an old 36 volt smart charger into a 36 volt manual charger for my BIL. He got my mom's 1972 Ez go.
I used a SPDT switch to make the charger smart or manual.

Sorry I havent gotten back to your question, Gene..I don't know at the moment...it is a 2 passenger, AO0223-154390, Model# 17930, SN# 11-01.
I am now thinking I have to get those 6 new 8 volt batteries as the voltage measures 2-3 volts in two or three, probably the end. Besides I would like to ensure no more fixing for the 3-5 years we will live out here on the acerage we love. The task now is to source the heavy batteries and have them delivered out here in the boonies and then me lifting the darn things........Leo

My neighbour has a fairly new EZGO 48 volt electric golf cart and she let the batteries die over the winter and then it would not charge. I went online for advice and tried charging 2 batteries (8volt each) with a 12 volt charger as recommended but that didnt work then I bought a smart charger and that didnt work so I disconnected the pos. and neg. cables and used my older Golf Cart 48volt manual charger and with pig tails in the connector plug charged it that way. It took about a day and a half to charge but now well.