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  • Buying a Pre-Owned Golf Cart: The Pre-Purchase Checklist

    Buying a Pre-Owned Golf Cart: The Pre-Purchase Checklist

    A used cart is a good deal exactly as often as it has been checked. Here is the inspection sequence that separates a bargain from a project.

    The checklist

    • Batteries: age, watering history, load test result, charger makes full charge
    • Brakes: pedal feel, pad life, no pull to one side
    • Tires: even wear, bead condition, correct size for rims
    • Frame: rust that flakes, holes or repair patches
    • Steering: play at the wheel, straight tracking on a test drive
    • Body: cracked plastics, roof damage, windshield condition

    Test drive it properly

    Uphill, downhill, full stop and a hard corner. A cart that performs in a parking lot can hide its problems until the first slope.

    Paperwork to take home

    Serial number, declared year, a written condition list, and any registration or ownership documents. No paperwork, small discount — decide up front which one you are accepting.

  • Do You Need a License to Drive a Golf Cart?

    Do You Need a License to Drive a Golf Cart?

    The answer changes with the surface under the wheels. A license is usually a question of where you drive, not what you drive.

    Breaking it down

    • Private property: owner rules, no government license normally required
    • Community streets and designated paths: often regulated locally
    • Public roads: typically requires the same licensing as any slow vehicle

    Registration and insurance follow the same map

    Where street use is allowed, registration and insurance requirements usually arrive at the same time. Communities that love carts tend to have simple rules; cities with heavy traffic tend not to.

    Start local

    Your county or city clerk can state, in one call, whether carts need a license, registration and insurance where you live. Get that answer in writing before buying.

  • How to Add Water to a Golf Cart Battery

    How to Add Water to a Golf Cart Battery

    Watering is the single most skipped battery task and the most damaging to skip. The routine is short and the rules are specific.

    The rules

    • Use distilled water only — tap water minerals coat the plates
    • Water after charging, so the electrolyte level reads true
    • Fill to just above the plates — never to the brim
    • Do not overfill; gas expansion during charging pushes acid out

    How often

    Check levels at least monthly in active use and more often in heat. A pack that runs hot or is charged daily needs visits more frequently than the calendar suggests.

    What overwatering does

    Excess liquid vents out, carrying acid where you do not want it: over terminals, into the tray and down the frame. Keep levels low and levels stay yours.

  • How Old Do You Have to Be to Drive a Golf Cart?

    How Old Do You Have to Be to Drive a Golf Cart?

    There is no single age for driving a golf cart because the rules split by where the cart is used: private property, course, community roads or public streets.

    Where rules come from

    • Private property: owner’s policy, no licensing body involved
    • Courses and communities: usually their own operating rules
    • Public roads: state and local driver-licensing rules apply

    Street driving changes everything

    Once a cart is on public roads it typically falls under vehicle regulations, which means minimum ages and licensing attached to road use — not to the cart itself.

    What to do about it

    Check the rules for your exact city and state before letting a younger driver take the wheel. The correct answers change frequently and by location, so validate with your local authority rather than a forum.

  • How to Test a Golf Cart Battery

    How to Test a Golf Cart Battery

    There is one test that tells you whether a pack is healthy, and it is not a voltage reading off a nearly-new charge.

    The readings that matter

    • Resting voltage twelve hours after a full charge shows state of charge
    • Voltage under load shows whether the pack delivers
    • Individual cell voltages show whether the pack is balanced

    How to load test

    A load tester draws a fixed current and watches how the voltage holds. A healthy battery holds voltage; a dying one sags immediately and recovers slowly.

    When to trust and not trust

    Trust a load test from a proper tester. Do not draw conclusions from voltage alone right after charging — everything reads fine for the first hour.

  • Choosing the Right Charger for Your Golf Cart Battery

    Choosing the Right Charger for Your Golf Cart Battery

    The charger must match the pack voltage first and the chemistry second. Getting either wrong produces undercharging, overcharging, or a very expensive click.

    The match list

    • Pack voltage: must match what the battery bank is wired to
    • Chemistry: lead-acid and lithium charge to different curves
    • Amperage: higher charges faster but courts heat on old packs
    • Connector: must seat cleanly on your cart’s port

    Charger behaviour

    Multi-stage chargers that taper as the pack fills protect battery life. A cheap “always full blast” charger shortens pack life even when it works.

    Warning signs to replace

    A charger that finishes early, runs hot, or fails to reach a full-charge state on a healthy pack. If the pack is fine and the charger is not, replace the charger — not the batteries.

  • Storing Your Golf Cart Battery for the Off-Season

    Storing Your Golf Cart Battery for the Off-Season

    A battery stored badly for three months does more harm than a year of hard use. The storage recipe is boring, cheap and easy to get wrong.

    The storage recipe

    • Charge to full, then store
    • Monthly: connect the charger and top up to full again
    • Store cool and dry; heat accelerates internal loss
    • Keep batteries off bare concrete with a mat or board underneath

    Why monthly matters

    Every battery self-discharges, and lead-acid that sits below full charge for weeks begins sulphating — crystals form on the plates and capacity is lost permanently. Monthly top-ups prevent that entirely.

    The disconnect question

    Disconnecting the negative cable prevents parasitic draw from clocks and controllers. Reconnect before charging so the charger reads the pack properly.

  • How Fast Do Electric Golf Carts Go?

    How Fast Do Electric Golf Carts Go?

    Stock electric carts are speed-limited by design, and the limit exists for your sake as much as anyone else’s.

    Typical stock speeds

    • Standard electric carts: a safe neighborhood pace
    • Street-legal trims: capped to stay within slow-vehicle road rules
    • Performance models: faster, with the brake and suspension work to match

    What sets the number

    The controller governs top speed, and it is usually set conservatively. Speed, range and battery load are competing demands — more speed drains the pack faster and shortens component life.

    If you want more

    Upgrade controller and motor together, upgrade braking, and check whether your local rules still allow the result on roads. Faster carts belong off-road unless they meet the letter of the law.

  • How to Change Brushes in an Electric Golf Cart

    How to Change Brushes in an Electric Golf Cart

    Brushes are the wear items inside a brushed DC motor — the contacts that carry current onto the spinning armature. They are replaceable, and their failure has a distinctive personality.

    Symptoms of worn brushes

    • Intermittent power, as if a switch is being toggled
    • Arcing noises from the motor under load
    • Loss of power that worsens at higher speeds

    Before you open the motor

    Rule everything else out first: battery pack under load, controller output, and the throttle position sensor. Brushes are the third suspect, not the first.

    The job in short

    It means removing the motor, replacing the brush set (and often checking the commutator for wear), then reinstalling and testing. If the commutator is heavily grooved, replacement beats a re-brush.

    If you are not comfortable with motor internals, this is a workshop job — it costs less than a new motor and far less than a shop visit after a reassembly mistake.