Any golf cart experts?

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Jan 11, 2007
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El Oeste
A friend and I are kicking the idea of going in together on a golf cart. We live pretty close to a course and play quite a bit now that he's got a healthy back again. Being a BITOGer, I'm naturally looking for something that is in decent shape but may be discounted because it needs some TLC.

One thing I'm trying to figure out is whether consider electric. I know small gas engines pretty well and would be more comfortable working on one of those. I don't have much experience with electric. But if they're very reliable and don't often need maintenance, then I'd consider one.

Any thoughts on that? Anything else on brand quality, longevity, parts price/availability, difficulty of repair, etc. would be welcome. Thanks a lot.
 
Does the course charge a cart trail fee? Many courses charge these fees to recoup the fees from people using their own carts.

Courses near me use Yamaha or Club Car.
 
It does. Split two ways, it'd be the equivalent of the cart fee for 10 rounds. We'd have that recouped by May.
 
OK, the issue with electrics is battery life. Most simple chargers cook the batteries. It's from two sources. The inability of the charger to sense true battery condition, and the actual condition of the wiring.

So the quick way to tell if a used cart has decent batteries is to look at the sidewalls ... If they are bulged, the batteries have been cooked. Their life has been shortened by 1/2 or more. If the batteries are square and flat sided, there is a chance they will live a long time.

The best scenario is for you to replace the factory wiring in the battery group with at least #4 welding cable with crimped and soldered lugs. I like tinned lugs, but any good high quality pieces will do.

The next big issue is to keep the batteries clean and dry. The schmultz that accumulates on the top of the batteries is corrosive and is also a chemical semi-conductor. It ill eat the cart parts and it will drain the batteries, and throw off the charging cycle.

The best affordable chargers I know of are Noco Intelligent units. You can get two and three bank chargers. And you can wire in plugs/receptacles in the cart to allow charging in banks of 12v. This means that the charger never sees the sum/series wiring. If there are any faults, they are isolated to one bank. Noco's will charge, float, and condition batteries. They will not overcharge, and they will not cook batteries.

If all is good you can get 7~10 years from a set of batteries. That is a lot of quiet golf, and no dealing with ethanol and 2-stroke carburetors, or 4-stroke valve adjustments, etc.
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Although I play Golf, I did not learn this from actual golf carts. I learned it from our son who is an EE and from the local Park that uses quiet golf carts and related electric utility vehicles for internal park service work. Their carts were dying and giving them fits. He went and helped them rehab/rewire the carts and mini-trucks and they were all surprised that they ran better than new. And no more issues with battery bank purchases. He laid out the whole maintenance pan with weekly wash-downs of the battery groups to keep them clean and dry (they are run 8 hours a day, every day). All the issues went away
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Now they buy the good used batteries from Interstate when the local courses turn in the whole lot of their batteries every 6 months or annually. Interstate sorts out the cooked ones for recycling and sells the good used ones for $80. So getting an electric cart up and running is not that cost prohibitive
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+1 BrocLuno. Worked as a course mechanic at one time. I would go electric all the way. Way less maintenance!

I Agree everything and have additional option. I would consider converting to deep cycle agm batteries. Most agm aren't true deep cycle. Best true DC ones I've found were Full River brand. Best DOD/life cycle I've ever found. Best part is never need water and eliminates all the creeping acid mess. The NOCO chargers work on them too.
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

BrocLuno - I just made my first BITOG donation with your post in mind. Danno is right - that's some great posting and why BITOG is almost always my first stop for insight on anything mechanical. Thanks a lot.
 
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Thanks folks, but I came to this thinking like a battery tech on a diesel/electric sub. For those guys, batteries were life and death.

So their knowledge was generally posted and spread in the marine engineering field and I caught some of it. Then working small boats and ship systems for years around salt water taught me a ton.

A lot of what I say on BITOG is just my opinion - most I guess ...

But some is truth - just trying to pass along
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I see a lot of electric carts that are 20+ years old in use as rentals, gas carts seem to make it about half that before they get sold off and replaced. Other than batteries, tires, greasing they are very low maintenance and if you ever want to go fast you can replace the speed controller and really crank them up. They're quieter, don't need oil changes, don't have belts, batteries can last a long time if maintained, no carbs to varnish up over the off season, no gas to go stale in the off season. Basically, park them in the fall and hook up the smart charger and you're good to go in the spring.
 
Yamaha gas golf cart all the way. In 2011 I bought a well cared for 2002 Yamaha G16 cart. In almost eight years all it's needed are oil changes, one battery, a fuel filter and some greasing every two years. Yamaha is almost bulletproof compared to some brands..
 
I've had electric carts going back to the 70's (actually still have a Cushman GC400 from 74)

I also worked for a property management company that had 40 golf carts, about half of which were leased, with the other half being owned.

Were I buying a new cart now, I would get gas, or an older used electric. In a gas cart, use ethanol free gas and you don't have to worry about carbs. Oil changes and routine maint is easy, but most importantly, with an electric cart you WILL shell out $800+ every few years for new batteries, even if you don't use the cart much.

That said, gas will cost you money in a gas cart, so one has to take that into consideration when looking. If you plan on using the cart a LOT, gas will cost you.

The newer electric carts have all kinds of unnecessary electrical garbage on them. A friend asked me to look at his newer EZGO that apparently has computer driven brakes. ECU goes bad, the wheels lock up. New ECU ran him close to $1K. Why do you need something like that on a golf cart?

The late 90's, early 00's EZGO's are cheap, easy to find in good shape, and simple and easy to maintain. The newer stuff? Not so much.
 
In 2011 I bought a 2002 Yamaha G16 gas cart for $3,000 for use in a golf cart community. It had been well cared for and came with a Kenwood stereo, larger alloy wheels and a few accessories. Nearly 10 years later it still runs like a champ. It has a one quart sump and I change it with 10w-30 ofull synthetic oil every two years. Of course I own the OLDEST golf cart of anyone I know in Florida. Oops, sorry for replying to an old post.
 
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