Advice on buying a golf cart

Do a little research on the places you camp. Lots of places are moving towards (or already have) anything that isn't plated, insured and road legal.

It''s purely a CYA thing in most cases, someone else's insurance take the park out of the line of fire if something happens.

That and misuse is pretty rampant.

Our bikes are getting old too, but we still use them camping. At home I have a scooter and the wife has a golf cart to get around. I would never take them to an RD park or campground. We have been looking at electric bikes.

Peddling a bicycle shouldn’t be hard and slow. Shift to make peddling easy and fast. Biggest issue for “Sunday” cyclists. Cadence should be 60 to 90 spins per minute. If you and DW stop bicycling what will replace that exercise?

I was going to suggest looking at e-bikes also. Not likely to be banned by parks. The downside is a pair are likely to cost more than a refurbished golf cart, at least for quality bikes. You can probably pick up a pair from a big box retailer for $1200-1500, but the quality may not be there, but for just puttering around the parks, they may be fine.

we've been hauling one along with us the past three years. we have found one park.. Idaho state park Henry's Lake, charges you a vehicle rate for anything with four tires and an engine :(. But Gros Ventre National park campground doesn't say a word against. Same with Custer State Park campgrounds. And same with Yellowstone park campgrounds.
So.. some campgrounds, public and private, will gouge you and some won't.

We were going to get a golf cart but decided to get two mobility scooters instead. There were three main reasons:
1. The mobility scooters come apart into 6 easy to store pieces. It takes less than 5 minutes to take them apart and put them back together.
2. RV parks have no restrictions for mobility scooter use.
3. My DW can take hers and go where she wants and I can take mine and go where I want. Or we can ride together.

Plus you can use them to travel inside stores, events, accessible trails, amusement parks...etc instead of walking.

We found two barely used scooters on craigslist- one was $300 the other was $600 and had only been used once (the mother didn't like it).

Well since no one actually answered the OP's question, please allow me to be the first...

The question about re-furbishing an older cart vs. buying a newer one is unfortunately too vague. You can likely find some older ones that just need new seats, tires, batteries, etc., but that all adds up quickly. For basic riding around purposes, a 36V cart would work fine and is a little more affordable. Now if you expect to do a lot of driving with it and maybe "carrying extra weight", then the 48V would be much better. Even at $2000, you're not likely to get a cart that doesn't require some work. But on the other hand, you should easily be able to find a cart in the $3000 range that is turn-key.

We often take our golf cart camping. Especially at larger campgrounds that have a lot of amenities, the carts are a must.

p220sigman wrote:
I was going to suggest looking at e-bikes also. Not likely to be banned by parks. The downside is a pair are likely to cost more than a refurbished golf cart, at least for quality bikes. You can probably pick up a pair from a big box retailer for $1200-1500, but the quality may not be there, but for just puttering around the parks, they may be fine.

Wow, nice to know I'm saving all that money, we don't take our bikes with us, we walk & hike,(mostly free), However after my upcoming partial knee replacement, we may have to re-evaluate. :(

Mine was a used fleet model from a golf course. The local golf cart shop gets the used ones, cleans them up, checks them out, then sells them for a fraction of what they cost new.

Mine is a 2009 EZGO RXV, 48V, with an AC (not DC) motor. Very quiet, travels at 19.5 MPH, has a range exceeding 30 miles. Easily hauls 4 people up hills. Price was about $2500 several years ago. New, this model was $8K.

The upside is there's virtually no maintenance other than watering/charging batteries.

The downside is the batteries eventually fail (5-6 years in my experience). I replaced mine again late last year. I bought Trojan T1275 batteries. The cost with core exchange, state fees and taxes were $772.54 for all 4 batteries.

It has enough power to pull a truck, which I did once. But I often use it to pull a 5x8 utility trailer filled with yard waste, or a couple of yards of mulch.











Electric carts are permitted at Disney's Fort Wilderness (gas are not), and at many of the FL State parks.

As suggested...maybe look at something like this......LINK

Lots of choices along this line. Google "electric bikes, or electric trikes.'