Hi - Need help and info with our electric golf cart

[WashingtonBay]

Hello everyone... my husband and I purchased our property in April, and it came with a golf cart that we just LOVE for getting around the property. It's our little work horse, and pulls a little modified trailer the previous owner made.

We'd like to know a couple of things about it first.... What make and model is it? Approximately how old? My husband and I did the beef-up of the back seat that you see in some of the pictures, it was previously pretty flimsy and liable to buck people right off.

It's good and solid now.


Our first maintenance need is going to be brakes... it basically doesn't have any... What is involved there, what kind of brakes does it have... are there repair shops that specialize in carts or would it be a standard brake shop?


Our questions after that will be tips and suggestions for battery life and replacement. We gather it's not maintenance free, we were told to add water from time to time by the prior owner, which we have. I suspect the batteries are no longer as strong as they could be, in terms of power. Are we better off replacing ALL the batteries at once, or can/should we replace them one by one, and spread the cost out a bit.


That's my immediate questions... Hopefully more will come up

[Michael Eddie]

Nice cart! That is a Club Car "Caroche" from the late 70s or early 80s. Nice mods on it, I like that! The brakes are normal drum brakes, take off the rear wheels and see if theres any pad left and adjust if necessary. If you dont know, take it to a Club Car dealer. As for batteries, replace either everything or nothing. Use Trojans for the best, If maintained they can last up to 5 years. That means watering them, cleaning them now and then, and keeping them charged over the winter, dont go over 30 days with out a charge and never run your batteries completely dead.

[WashingtonBay]

Thanks for your response! It's a bit of a rough looking old cart, but we just think it's the niftiest thing! Great for patrolling our property because it's so quiet!

The brakes were a little weak (had to stand on it pretty hard to stop on our hill) when we took it over... and they haven't improved with time They work fine on the flat, but we can now lo longer stop it on our hill... once we head down, we're committed! Not good, we need to look into that. Question is, should we try to look ourselves (we're techies, not mechanics, but we need to learn) or should we just load it up and take it to a shop.

As you can see... if we can make it out of wood, we're fairly handy. Other repairs... we need help. Perhaps this time we'll take it in to someone who knows what they're doing

It has Trojan batteries in it now... thanks for the tips on battery replacement, that's good to know, we've been wondering. Also sounds like we're better off to charge it every time we use it, whether it needs it or not? That's better for it than letting it get low first?

[Michael Eddie]

As you can see... if we can make it out of wood, we're fairly handy. Other repairs... we need help. Perhaps this time we'll take it in to someone who knows what they're doing

If you have done it on your car, its the same on your golf cart. Or in fact more basic. Heres what I would do. Take off the rear wheel and have a look at it, if you don't know how to do it send it over to a mechanic.

It has Trojan batteries in it now... thanks for the tips on battery replacement, that's good to know, we've been wondering. Also sounds like we're better off to charge it every time we use it, whether it needs it or not? That's better for it than letting it get low first?

No problem Yes it is a good habit to charge it after use, if you use it a little bit, just run a shorter charge cycle. Hope this helps.

[WashingtonBay]

Well, I've done some poking around on it... and discovered the pads actually look OK to me... and it has hydraulic brakes and an old looking master cylinder under the front cowl... I suspect loss of hydraulic fluid or a failed master cylinder. We definitely aren't able to repair that on our own, but I did find a golf cart repair shop we can prolly take it to not too far away. And the parts seem available online for not too much.


The parking brake on it is a different pedal and looks like a different mechanism with a cable that runs down under and that cable seems real loose.

I didn't want to get under it myself... I'll let hubby do that over the weekend I think But I wonder if we tighten that cable if we wouldn't be able to make it serviceably safe in the short term with at least the parking brake working.

[oliviazhang]

hi, as a worker in golf cart manufacture, I really believe this is an industry full of margin