final thread on Electric golf carts?
 

After all the debate back and forth on gas vs electric carts I have one question... Has anybody that has electric and maintains and charges their batteries, run out of "charge" while traveling in The Villages?
Everyone has there own opinion on gas vs. electric, I personally like electric and have not been stranded yet, but would like to know if other people have been stranded.

We have an electric and a gas. The electric has stopped twice. The gas not at all. We have had the electric for two years and the gas for six years.

At the gas cart dealer there is a big sign that says; "Let's Beat Electric."

At the electric cart dealer there is a big sign that says" Let's Pass Gas."

Graciegirl, why did the electric stop?

It ran out of charge. The batteries have since been replaced and it has been fine.

No sir...
 

At the risk of jinxing myself.... never ever have I run out of volts.... not even close, never even entered my mind....

Stranded however? Well there was one time my lab assistant and I almost got stuck. We were "off roading" somewhere out south of 466a before Bonifay and Pinellas existed. I was out in the middle of no where and it was getting dark. It was not that I did not know the general direction of N/S/E/W, but I had lost the path that construction folks used and was not sure where the roads were, so had to be careful of soft sand, holes or mounds. Drove and and drove and by luck found a solid dirt road.

Phew, I thought.... All the time, I was practicing 'the call'...

me: Honey, can you come get me?
lovely wife: Where the ___ are you?

me sheepishly: I am not too sure.....:ohdear:

Even that night the cart had 49 volts when we rolled in at home.....I am going to miss those adventures until Gary get some more undeveloped land.

You know I can ask the question another way - has anyone without a gas gauge in their car or cart run out gas.....of course you would or did,
if you don't know how much gas is in the tank it's the same as not knowing how much charge is in the battery bank.

Most of the elec carts here use a old fashion battery meter you know red/green those just don't cut it.

You will NOT run out of charge with a good digital meter displaying the exact voltage in batteries.

By the way I never ran out of "battery charge" ;)

We own a 2013 Precedent Club Cart and it only has a "dummy" light. Who in The Villages will install a digital meter?

I've seen a battery blow up, and it was on a gas cart !!!!!

let's assume your electric is only supposed to get 40 miles to a charge....that is a trip to Ocala.....think about it!

btk

We have a 1998 electric Club Car. Have we ever run out of charge? Yes we have.. not often but yes it has happened and my explanation is this. When batteries get to being 3 yrs old and they are not taking a charge in the same capacity as they did when they were new there is reason to be cautious. The couple of times that we have run out of charge happen to be due to batteries that were around 3 plus yrs old and we played golf at a course a good distance from home, headed to Sumter Landing and stayed there longer than originally planned and therefore had to use headlights driving home which took just a little more juice than what our batteries had left in them. When batteries are new or fairly new I don't worry about running out of power.

It's a long way from Brown Wood to maybe Wal Mart or Nancy Lopez and then back to Spanish Springs, Target, back to Sumter and home again after playing a round of golf or just being out for a day of riding around touring The Villages.

If you do not have a fuel gauge all you have to do is lift the seat and view the gas tank which is clear plastic and the fuel is clearly visible. Have never been even close to being out of fuel. Just pull in and fill up if needed and drive baby drive........and don't worry about being able to make it home at all.

Old batteries =stranded
 

Kaydee you hit the nail on the head. Watch out for batteries 3 years and older. In 8 years I've never been stranded but we came back from our summer home and my 2 year old batteries had to be replaced. The battery dealer told me that heat is bad and your garage gets very very hot in the summer. We still have our electric club cart but also have a gas model.

When we built a new home in Sanibel, we bought a gas cart for long distance insurance. By the way, we always have a "house watch" person drive our electric every two weeks while we are gone and fill it with water as needed.

Call Michael (Cart Fix......) he installed one for me about 3 months ago - it's working fine, is accurate and very informative.

The sampling rate is 2.5 readings per second and the accuracy is plus/minus 0.1V (typ), plus/minus 0.2V (max).

He will tell you what the numbers mean to your batteries and what to watch for - or go to the Trojan Battery web site and all the information is there.

Had electric cart for 5 years. Never came close to running out of charge. The meter has never been on the lowest rung even when we've done 30 miles on 4-year old batteries.