Golf Cart Batteries Not Charging

by Mike
(Estero,FL)



My Trojan T-105's were great until I found myself as far away from the house as I could get in my development. I used all available power to get back, just limping.

After that, batteries do not hold a charge very well at all. Lately, I will charge them until charger shuts off, and the next day or so the charge indicator will be down to 1/2 or 3/4, and a short ride will deplete the charge.

I feel that I should be able to salvage some of the six batteries, since they all can't go bad at once.....or am I wrong?

What is best way to test them individually, keeping in mind I do not have any hi-tech equipment here in Florida. I am a snow bird, so the cart sits from April to October, but in the past, all it took was a good charge to provide good performance. I always leave it with a full charge when I go.
Wires look good, there is virtually no corrosion at terminals, and the batteries were approx. 2 to 3 yrs old when I got the cart, and that was 3 yrs ago.
The cart itself is in wonderful condition for a early 90's Club Car.
Help! I would love to enjoy it this season without spending 700+ bucks.

Hi, Mike -
My first thought is that when you ran the batteries down, you confused your charger. Hopefully that's the problem, because it's an easy one to fix; )

The guy in the video above outlines an alternative charging procedure in this situation; a work-around to your regular charger. What you do is use a regular car charger to charge the batteries by hand, two at a time. Then your regular charger will work fine next time. This is just sort of a "reset".

As for equipment? A simple voltmeter will tell you plenty.

Battery University says the way to tell if you've got a battery that's lost charging capacity is to first charge it up, then let it rest four hours, then test the voltage across each battery. You can follow the "battery university" link for more info if you like.

Three more things:

Your batteries CAN all go bad at once, particularly if they are a well-matched set - all from the same batch so the same age.

Older batteries need more water than younger ones.

Temperatures in Florida will speed up the battery aging process.

Hope this helps,
Lynne

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