Bought a used ClubCar (48v) back in Feb/Mar. A few weeks after getting it we had an incident where it acted as if we had run the battery almost completely down but the low battery indicator never came on. Since then we just made sure to plug it in after each time we used it and never had issues. A few weeks ago I installed a new battery gauge so I would know exactly how much juice was in it. This afternoon my wife took it out. Gauge showed about 3/4 "full". It started acting funny (moving slowly & a kind of stop/start jerking motion) on the way home and I ended up having to go push them a block or so home because it quit moving. The weird part was that the gauge still showed 1/2 full and I verified that with a voltmeter when we got it back in the garage. My expectation is that the cart should be able to run the battery down much more than half so I assume there is probably a bad component somewhere. Anyone have any ideas?

do they have distilled water in them like they should ?

Yes. I typically check the batteries and top them off every couple of weeks.

They're kind of a pain. Always have to clean terminals and keep them tight. Make sure everything electrical is snug.

Charge it up full then check each battery's power. They should be either 6 volt or 8 volt. Then drive it a bit and check them all again. You may have one or two in bad shape that are pulling the whole system down.

Post that on BuggiesGoneWild. You'll probably get an answer within the hour.

Battery issues are the most obvious. How old are the batteries? If more than about 4 years, consider them suspect. You're correct in charging and leaving it plugged in after each use.

Discharge test them, if possible. That's really the only certain way to know the status of each battery. Test voltages for each battery (not just the pack) while under load. Consult a state of charge table, discharge voltages are not linear, 50% is pretty low.

If they're good, check your speed sensor. Make sure the magnet is intact.

If that's good, test the solenoid.

If this only happens when the batteries are low, it's likely not your MCOR. But testing that is fairly straight forward as well.

If all these are good, you may have controller/motor issues. I'd be willing to bet you won't get that far down the list, however.

you bought the cart used. If the cart was not driven regularly the battery life was probably severely shortened. If you need to replace them be sure to purchase batteries made for golf carts. Don't buy regular batteries, because they are not intended for the heavy loads required by the golf cart.

Have you considered converting to lithium batteries? They are much more expensive but the warranty is at least twice as long and you don't have to mess with water.

Definitely a battery issue

Determine what volts they are supposed to be.

Put a meter on each battery, one at a time, and have someone lighting press the gas to create a load

One or more of them will show correct voltage but when the gas is pressed it will drop to close to zero

Replace the bad battery, problem solved