Transporter XL Melting Terminals and Exploding Battery

[dpproductions]

Hi there,
A little back story: I work at a Margaritaville in the Caribbean and am in charge of maintaining our fleet of Club Cars. Guest Services uses primarily the Transporter XL carts to get our guests around our VERY hilly property. I've got one cart in particular that has been giving me trouble, the front two batteries have been melting the terminals, first one then the other and yesterday we had one just obliterate on us, the whole top of the battery case cracked and blew off.
My question is this:
What is causing the terminals to melt like this?
The two batteries in the front are new and the ones in the rear are older but less than a year.
Ideally I would want to replace all the batteries at the same time, but sourcing 6v batts is challenging on a tiny island so I end up having to band-aid things to get them up and running. I'm kind of stumped as to why this is happening repeatedly on this one cart.
Any help/advice is much appreciated and thank you in advance!
-Drew

[Alanflyers1]

Only thing I’ve learned about melting terminals are that the nuts on the cables to the battery. When they are loose they short out. Only reason I know this is because I had gone thru three batteries That way I’m no mechanic or anything but that is what I found. May be other reasons

[golfcartg]

Hey Drew! Sounds like you're in the middle of a battery conundrum, and that's definitely no paradise! Melting terminals and batteries blowing their tops off—yikes!

A couple of potential culprits could be at play here. First off, those terminals could be getting too hot due to a high electrical resistance, which might happen if the connections aren't snug or there's corrosion messing things up. Secondly, overcharging can generate excessive heat, leading to terminal meltdowns and battery blowouts. If the charger's output voltage is too high, it could cook those poor batteries.

Given the challenges of sourcing 6V batteries, band-aid fixes are sometimes the only resort. But for a lasting fix, tightening up those connections, ensuring clean terminals, and monitoring the charger's output voltage might help avert this battery barbecue.