How Long Do Golf Cart Batteries Last? A Buyer’s Guide

If your golf cart gets sluggish when you’re on the back nine, it might be time to replace your golf cart batteries. 

Generally, golf cart batteries can last years and years if you recharge them after every use. However, their lifespan can also vary, depending on how you’re using them and their battery chemistry.

As a deep-cycle battery, lead-acid batteries can power more than a golf cart. You might not be able to start your Ford F150 with a 6 volt golf cart battery, but you can connect a handful of golf cart batteries to an RV for house power or a solar panel array for backup power. Like all lead-acid batteries, they don’t like extreme summers and winters.

A lithium golf cart battery comes with the high-voltage settings, letting one or two lithium batteries operate what six or eight lead-acid batteries power. They do need protection against the cold. If you try to charge a lithium battery in extreme cold, you may permanently damage it.

Golf cart batteries are designed to give hours of amps and enjoy a full recharge when they’re done, like your phone battery. (Just an FYI, your phone battery doesn’t like staying 100% charged.)

All batteries wear out eventually. It’s natural to wonder how often you’ll need to replace them when shopping for your next set of golf cart batteries.

Let’s tee up a few answers.

RELATED Why Did My Car Battery Die? The 5 Usual Suspects Revealed 

How Long Do Golf Cart Batteries Last on Average?

Lead-acid golf cart batteries last four to six years on average if you maintain them well. Like all other lead-acid batteries, keep them charged every chance you can and refill them with water if they lose any while they recharge. After all, most golf cart batteries come with some kind of removable caps so you can maintain the fluid levels inside.

For a typical lead-acid golf cart battery, four to six years of service life isn’t too bad.

A lead-acid car battery can last three to five years, depending on a few factors — including how it was treated before you bought it. Car batteries have a shorter lifespan than golf cart batteries generally. That’s because of the deep cycling that a golf cart battery can do. You can permanently damage a regular car battery by draining it to just 75% power. On the other hand, a 6-volt or 8-volt golf cart battery has thicker plates and a modified internal chemistry so that it can handle being discharged to 20% without damaging the battery’s ability to store power.

How Long Do Lithium Golf Cart Batteries Last?

With proper care and charging, the small, lightweight lithium-ion golf cart batteries can last 10 years or more. They can be an expensive, upfront investment for your electric-powered golf cart, but they can deliver more savings in the long run.

The key to lithium golf car battery life is the chemistry itself: Lithium batteries were made for the strain of deep cycles.

Lead-acid batteries can deliver a lot of power quickly because it gets free electrons from the interaction of the lead metal and sulfuric acid. Lithium batteries get free ions by merging lithium with another material. That’s a slower process, generally, and it is why lithium batteries work so well with partial cycles. That means a power cycle where a fully charged battery drains to only 30% or 40% before getting recharged. If you keep your phone above 50%, your phone battery only goes through partial cycles.

How to Make Your Golf Cart Batteries Last Longer

Proper maintenance is the key to keeping your golf cart batteries running for years, said Interstate Batteries expert Jeff Barron. His decades-long experience in auto electronics, engineering and batteries keeps our batteries performing well for car lovers, boaters and even golf cart owners.

“If golf cart batteries are well maintained, they can last for a long time, from four to six years in most applications,” Barron said.

Plenty of factors can affect a golf cart battery’s life, so he recommends doing what you can to protect them while you’re using them.

That starts with good charging habits.

Keep your golf cart batteries charged.

“Anytime you use the batteries, they need to be charged,” he said. “This will help them last and be ready to go when you are.”

Golf cart batteries, like other deep cycle batteries, can use 80% of their power before getting a recharge. That doesn’t mean you have to drain them to keep them healthy. In fact, you should try to keep lead-acid batteries as fully charged as possible.

Use a charger designed for your golf cart battery’s specific voltage, whether they’re 6 volts or 12 volts. Also, choose a charger designed for your battery, especially if it’s an absorbed glass-mat (AGM) battery. (AGMs do require a different charger.) 

Just be sure you don’t overcharge them or use a charger with an automatic shut-off or float charge setting. Always charge golf cart batteries in a well-ventilated area.

Check your specific golf cart battery’s manual for charging times.

Likewise, lithium batteries do need to be charged and with the right charger to match amps and volts. Check your battery’s instruction manual for charging instructions.

If you connect the wrong charger, the battery management system in the lithium battery could disallow any charging to protect the battery. In fact, aside from how you use the battery, the way you recharge your lithium golf car battery could be a major factor in how long it will last.

You don’t add water or clean corrosion from lithium batteries, but all batteries undergo self-discharge. That is, all batteries eventually drain themselves, even when they’re not in use. Lithium batteries have an extremely low self-discharge rate, matching AGM batteries for holding their charge.

How long should you recharge your golf cart battery?

Check your golf cart battery manual for specific charging instructions, especially for lithium batteries.

If you don’t have your manual, here’s a trick for lead-acid batteries: Take your battery’s amp hours and divide by 10 to get the charging rate. For instance, the GC12-HCL-UTL golf cart battery has 150 Ah, meaning it can take a 10-amp charge for 15 hours.

Regardless of lithium or lead-acid, you should never ever drain your golf cart batteries down to zero if you can help it. Both lithium and lead-acid batteries can be damaged permanently if they drain down to zero. In lead-acid batteries, the active material that stores electricity will slowly harden. It’s a chemical process called sulfation. Total sulfation can take weeks, but the process takes a toll every minute the battery sits without a charge. If your golf cart ever dies, you might be able to charge its batteries, but they may not last as long before they need a recharge again.

Draining a lithium battery to zero can severely damage its capacity. Remember how lithium batteries get spare electrons by merging lithium metal with another metal? (The other metal can vary, depending on specific chemistry.) When you drain lithium golf cart batteries to zero, small parts of the lithium battery are permanently bonded to the other metal — meaning that no matter how you try to recharge your battery, you might not be able to get the same number of electrons out of it as you once did.

In general, to keep your lithium golf cart batteries healthy, recharge them every time after use.

Water your golf cart batteries to keep them healthy.

You should water your lead-acid golf cart batteries because of all the charging they need. Charging batteries can overheat them, turning the water inside into vapor and exposing the sensitive internal components to air and drying out. Most golf cart batteries come with vent caps that twist or lever open so you can refill them with distilled water to replenish the lost water from recharging and regular use.

How to refill a golf cart battery with water:

1. Carefully open the top of the battery.
2. Find the fill line on the edge.
3. Add distilled water until the water level rises above one-eighth of an inch over the lead plates.

Only distilled water will do. Any impurities in the water can cause problems for your battery.

Now, this only applies to lead-acid golf cart batteries. Do not take apart any lithium batteries, golf cart or otherwise. Lithium batteries don’t like heat any more than lead-acid batteries, but they don’t give off any gases. If you see a swelling lithium battery, it’s not gas. The battery has gone bad, and you should contact someone to safely dispose of it. Do not throw it in the garbage.

How to Connect Golf Cart Batteries in Series

Most golf carts use a 36-volt system or a 48-volt system. Lithium golf cart batteries already come in 36 volts or 48 volts, ready to hook up to your golf cart. On the other hand, most lead-acid golf cart batteries don’t come in such high voltage. So how do you make 6-volt or 8-volt golf cart batteries fit a 48-volt golf cart?

You can connect golf cart batteries in a series.

That’s the electrical engineering term for connecting a line of batteries, linking the positive terminal of one battery to the negative terminal of the next. This style of connection, positive to negative, simply adds the voltages together. Two 6-volt batteries in a series become a 12-volt battery pack.

If you connect six 8-volt golf cart batteries in a series, you’ll get a 48-volt golf cart battery pack.

Connecting batteries in a series can get you the voltage you need, but there’s a catch. The total battery pack is only as powerful as its weakest battery. If one battery drops voltage or loses capacity, the whole battery pack will follow. That’s why our experts recommend you avoid pairing worn golf cart batteries with new ones. If you only replace one golf cart battery in a pack of six, you’ll get the performance of whatever the weakest battery is.

Connecting batteries in a series does not increase the total amp hour rating.

To get more capacity from your golf cart batteries, lead-acid or lithium, you’d need to link them in parallel — positives to positives, negatives to negatives — which will not increase the voltage.

If you treat your next set of golf cart batteries well with routine charging and protection from the elements, they might last longer than your golf clubs.