Please educate me about golf carts!
 

I know I'm going to get a lot of good information and advice here!

I know NOTHING about golf carts. Gas? Electric? One or Two benches? Do you plug them in at night? Do they have a favorite snack? :throwtomatoes:

Help please! :thumbup:

Hang On..................This is going to be a "ride".

:jester:

It's simply amazing the amount of information that's available at your fingertips.

... one only needs to use a little ingenuity and that search engine thingie .... Goggles or something like that?

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Gas-powered are more popular in The Villages by a wide margin as The Villages is huge and the range of electric carts is seen as limited (though that's not totally fair with modern electric carts).

One or two-bench seats? For me, the proper answer is "none". Two bench-seats means either having one mounted in the rear of the cart where passengers face the rear while riding or having a longer cart with the second row of seating facing forward. Neither are ideal. Nobody likes to ride facing the rear and they end up uncomfortably twisting around to see the front and talk to the passengers in the front. And standard golf carts really aren't built to handle the weight of four adults. The longer carts with two proper rows of seating are longer (duh!), can't park perpindicularly into parallel parking spots (which is how you park normal golf carts), are substantially more expensive and you'll probably rarely use the second row of seating. A lot of us prefer to have a cart that just comfortably seats 2 and then renting one of those longer, twin-rows-of-seating carts on the comparatively rare occaisions that you need one.

So why not a single bench seat? I know I was originally going that route as it'll save you close to $2,000 over the fancier bucket seats. I sat in a bench seat when I was shopping for our cart and it was just fine. Then I sat in one of the nicer, bucket-style seats and it WAS SO MUCH BETTER! It had WAY better seat cushioning, WAY better lumbar support, WAY more comfortable outer arm rests (as well as inner arm rests) and the driver seat was adjustable so my wife (who is not all that tall) could slide it forward and not have to use those stupid, strap-on pedal extensions.

Your mileage may vary. Offer not legal in all states. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Some assembly required. Do not take my advice if you are allergic to my advice. See your doctor if your erection lasts longer than three hours.

Here's my take.
Seriously.. buy a hybrid vehicle.
Sure you can't use it for golfing, but can go shopping all on battery power same as a cart, and in air conditioning
and a hell of a lot quieter.

One person’s advise, in the order of your questions. Gas. One. No. Ethanol free gas.

How are you going to use it? I live in Osceola Hills and can get to either top or bottom of The Villages, play 18 holes of golf and get home with my electric cart. Now that I have done that, I prefer to drive my car to the extremes rather than spend all that time in a golf cart. So the comments that electric golf carts won’t go all that far are wrong. I prefer the convenience and the very quiet drive of electric. However, I am not a person who thinks driving 100 miles in my golf cart every day is fun.
As far as depreciation goes, my cart is 10 years old and is running fine and is in great condition. However, I take care of it and plan to keep it for at least another 10 years. At that point, very few carts are worth all that much.

Go with bucket seats. If you have friends coming to town, rent a cart for a week. You will be happier in the long run.

That's true. But on TOTV, all that "good information and advice" will likely be contradictory :1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

What’s Vegas saying about the over/under on number of posts arguing gas vs electric?

I went with a gas cart in the hopes that the oceans rise, cover the east coast of Florida, and I end up with a beach front property.

Sort of like the question posed to a well-known golf pro some years back...can't remember the name. Gary Player, maybe? Anyway, the question: "What is the secret of golf"?

His answer: "Just tee it up and hit it. And when you find it, hit it again."

Golf carts seem to be something like that. Our history with our cart (2013 Yamaha gas powered):

- Get in.
- Turn the key to "on".
- Go.

We've owned it going on four years now, and never a problem. Just get the oil changed once a year and replace the spark plug. I did add seat belts to the thing but that was with a kit from Amazon and maybe a half-hour with a drill and socket set. Check the tire pressure now and again when the wife imagines this tire or that looks a bit flat. Wash with windshield from time to time. Really, not much more.

I think you have to tell us how you think you will use it. Replacing a car, short trips, under 30 or 40 miles a day, does operating cost matter (replacement of batteries) etc.

Like everything else...Bacon.

A Corolla hybrid is a far better value and for about the same money :)

:gc: