[SaltLifeCC]

jracer, you may have a bad battery. I just bought mine a few weeks ago and had similar issues and it turned out to be a bad battery. First things first, check and fill battery fluid if necessary. If you don't have a multi-meter, it's a good investment and not that expensive. They are intimidating devices if you are like me and know very little about electronics but you really only need to know a fraction of what they can do.

You can get the batteries tested and see if you can find a bad one, or more. You can get a hydrometer and test every cell in each battery and see if you can spot a bad one or more.

My cart has 4 12v batteries. My first step was to buy a multi-meter. Paid less than 20 bucks for it and I think it's decent and accurate. My problem was that all of the batteries seemed to be taking a charge okay but the charger was never cutting off, it would just time out after like 16 hours. But the cart ran great and seemed to give a good run-time. It just so happened that, when I bought and installed a light kit, the battery I hooked my lights to was the bad battery. The lights would go dim and out in just a short time. So, I swapped another battery for that one and the lights worked fine. But the cart still wouldn't fully charge. After charging the cart, I checked the voltage on the entire battery pack using my meter and then each battery individually. All seemed okay right after charging. But after putting any load on the cart at all (i.e. riding it), that one battery started to lose voltage very quickly while the others stayed okay. I'd ride the cart a bit and then stop and check the voltage on that battery with a meter. I'd have 3 batteries showing 12.6volts and that one showing 10.4volts after just a short amount of time.

Load may be the key, though. Another test I did was to take the battery out of the cart and put it on a trickle charger. After charging it up, I checked it periodically over the course of a day or so and it seemed to be holding fine. But, I put it back in the cart and starting using it and the voltage would quickly go down. Fortunately, the guy I bought the cart from had some good batteries almost the same age as mine and was willing to swap it out for me. And all seems to be good since then.

Bottom line, you could pull all of the batteries and go have them load tested and find the culprit(s) pretty quickly. Or you can use some trial and error and figure it out for yourself. But it's probably best to suspect the batteries first and then look at other things if those check out okay. Assuming you've checked for and cleared any corrosion at the terminals and made sure the cables were all connected well and in good condition.