golf cart batteries dead?

Thanks everyone for the info.

Spend $20.00 and get a Schumacher battery tender at Wally world. It will bring them back up if they aren't bad and hold them at full charge. You will need one anyway even if the batteries are bad and you have to get new ones. I always take my batteries out if storing and leave them on a trickle/tender charger. They will last a long time by doing that.

Bad batteries or possible bad electrolyte put in them or wrong electrolyte level. I they were put away with the top of the plates exposed they probably sloughed off some materials that shorted them out. Some low cost batteries use cardboard spacers between plates and when deeply discharged they warp and short out. It also could be a bad battery charger. Just a few guesses but that's all they are.

I think you must have had a slow drain on the batteries from the trailer side... If I am not hooked up to shore power from my garage I will disconnect my batteries from the trailer.

Sounds like parasitic drains from the several things in the trailer have run down your batteries if it was left hooked up all this time. have no answer for why the older batteries didnt drain down as well. I guess you were with all four batteries hooked up to the trailer electrical system during this time. My batteries will drain down in just a week or two and start making beeping sounds from inside the trailer if I leave it hooked up to my trailer without any charger going.

I too have run into the battery charger thing where it kicks out when trying to charge up a completely drained battery. I go down to the lowest setting and try so trickle charge things first to try to get the level up high enough so the charger won't trip off line. Just charge in stair steps until you get it high enough to run normal charging voltages...

I agree however with the others here sounds like they are too far gone...

I left my two working GP24 Interstates batteries sit fully charged on my trailer tongue this past winter in a BATTERY DISCONNECT STATE and just checked them last week and all still fine. They went from NOV thru April this year with a charge put on them sitting in my trailer tongue. We don't have any long freeze periods here in Northern neck VA. Seems to always warms back up the next day when the sun comes.

Just my thoughts
Roy Ken

I had the same problem...thought my charger was bad.
Found out that of the batteries get below a particular voltage it will not charge them.

Hi Duke,

The speed of the reaction slows by about 1/2 for every 18 degrees F change in temperature. -40 would be an excellent storage temperature if the battery is fully charged first.

The recondition setting uses a rapid pulsing to try to break the hard sulphate up and get it back into the solution. I'd suggest borrowing one from a friend.

Equalization may be done with an old fashioned totally manual charger. Keep it on until the battery voltage hits 8. (for a six volt battery) If there is one with a 2 amp setting that might recondition as well--leave it on for a week @ 2 amps.

But probably this set of jars is toast.

Duke-44 wrote:
The temp was in the 50's. How cool would it have to be?
I have 2 chargers neither have an equalizer or recondition setting. would it be called something else? I tried to charge them twice....it appeared that they would get up to about 60% then the chargers would seem to stop charging and the % would go back to about 5%.

?????

Unfortunately they sound like they are dead. Once the plates sulfate heavily due to deep discharge they are permanently damaged, and if they are allowed to sit discharged for a period of time it is not at all uncommon for them to be rendered useless. What happens in a long/deep discharge situation is the sulfate become very hard and will no longer react with the acid in the battery (remember, a battery is a chemical reaction container, converting and re-converting compounds to hold and release an electrical current.) If enough of one (or more) of the plates (cells) becomes heavily sufated it will lose the ability to sustain the chemical reactions that make a battery function and it will then drain off any charge capacity of the still functioning cells, rendering the battery incapable of holding a charge.

A reconditioning charger will attempt to 'burn' off the sufate (reconvert it, as normal battery operation will do with a light sufation caused from normal operation), at least to a certain extent, but this can also overheat the battery if not done properly and cause premature failure. A standard charger will not have this function, typically, and normal charging methods will not generate enough power to break up the sulfate buildup.

Batteries should always be maintained at %100 charge when not in active use. In the future, when leaving any battery to sit for more than a few weeks time, you should consider getting a battery tender - they come in 1,2, and 4 battery capacities and they will keep your batteries fully, and safely, charged while they are stored. There are other brands of devices that perform similar service, but I only have experience with the Battery Tender brand...

- R

The temp was in the 50's. How cool would it have to be?
I have 2 chargers neither have an equalizer or recondition setting. would it be called something else? I tried to charge them twice....it appeared that they would get up to about 60% then the chargers would seem to stop charging and the % would go back to about 5%.

?????

Hi,

Golf cart batteries self discharge much faster because of their chemistry. 1% per day is quite possible. Once they are below about 12.2 volts the plates may start to become covered with a hard sulphate. If the storage conditions were colder the self discharge rate would be much slower.

If you have a charger that can equalize--try an equalization on them. Then try the "recondition" setting on the charger. Give it five tries. If the specific gravity has not risen--then the existing golf cart batteries are toast.