Buy a new lead set when the charger already works, the tray is stock, the cart does a short day, and someone will water a flooded pack or you are willing to pay for AGM.
The answer for a cart that should stay on lead-acid
The upfront battery price is lower than a lithium kit. The core charges are extra and refundable. The water and the weight are the ongoing cost.
Buy lithium instead when the set is the second or third replacement, the cart is a daily driver, or the household has already proven it will not water batteries.
Do not buy a lead set as a temporary bridge and then series it with a lithium battery later. When you convert, the lead set comes out in one visit.
Price the set on the product page. This article will not quote a dollar figure for the batteries.
Hold that answer while you read the shop notes under it. The notes are the same rules we use on every cart. The answer above is the part that is specific to a cart that should stay on lead-acid.
ECO case shapes and pricing
ECO’s cart batteries come as Cube, Square, Skinny, and Thru-Hole cases so the pack fits the tray you have, not a generic rectangle. Bundles pair a battery with a charger and install parts for a named cart. Some ICON parts depend on the year. The product page is the fitment note.
The ECO listings we carry state a limited lifetime warranty. ECO sets a minimum resale price, so our price follows ECO’s pricing policy. Do not ask an article for an ECO price. Open the product.
Prices live on the product page
This site does not hide a better price in an article. The price you pay is the price on the product page when you check out. ECO prices follow ECO’s pricing policy, so we do not discount those listings off the policy. Other brands are priced on their own pages.
Do not add a ‘street price’ from memory. Kits change, and a quoted number in a blog post goes stale. If you need a fit confirmed before you pay, send the cart details. We would rather hold an order for a photo than ship the wrong bracket.
Heat, garages, and flooded water loss
A closed garage in Arizona, the Coachella Valley, or a Florida afternoon can sit far above the outside air. Flooded batteries use water faster in that heat. Check them on a schedule, after charging, with distilled water. Lithium packs and chargers also have temperature limits. Do not charge a lithium pack in a heat-soaked closed garage if the battery or the charger is too hot to touch. Let the space cool, or charge in a cooler hour.
Heat is not a voltage change. A 48-volt cart does not become a 36-volt cart because the state is hot. It does become a cart that needs its water, its ventilation, and its charger checked.
Cables and lugs
The lug has to sit flat on clean lead or on the lithium terminal the kit specifies. A rocking cable arcs and pits the post. Torque it, then try to twist it by hand. If it moves, it is not done. Replace a cable whose strands are green inside the insulation or whose lug is eaten through.
A lithium kit’s cables have to be the gauge the kit asks for. Allied packages include 4-gauge cables for that reason. Do not reuse a corroded 6-volt jumper as the main lead on a 105Ah lithium pack. Hold-downs matter as much as lugs. A battery that bounces will crack a post even if the electrical work was perfect.
What a BMS cutout looks like
A lithium battery has a battery management system. It can open the circuit if a cell is low, if the pack is too hot or too cold to charge, or if the current is too high. The cart goes quiet. The meter may show an error or a sudden empty. That is not always a dead pack, and it is not a solenoid click.
Let the pack come back to a sane temperature. Use the lithium charger that belongs to it. Do not parallel a lead-acid charger onto the posts to ‘wake it up.’ If the pack cut out because it was discharged to its floor, the fix is a proper charge, then a look at why the day’s driving emptied it. If it cut out immediately on a full meter, stop and get the brand’s reading before you replace parts around it.
Cores and recycling
A lead-acid golf battery is mostly lead, and that lead is recycled. The $18 core on each flooded or AGM battery is the deposit. A set of six is six deposits. A set of eight is eight. Lithium batteries, chargers, harnesses, and parts do not get a core line.
The core comes back when we receive the old battery. Contact us first. The battery has to be upright, capped, and not cracked or leaking. A battery that cannot be handled safely cannot be taken as a core. This is true for a shipped return and for a local delivery. Watering the new batteries, or charging them, or installing them, is a separate question from the core, and it makes the new battery a final sale except for damage, the wrong item, or warranty.
Do not mix lithium and lead in one pack
A lithium battery and a lead-acid battery in the same string do not share current honestly. The voltages do not track, the chargers disagree, and the BMS can open while the lead batteries are still trying to work. Pull the whole lead set out when you install a lithium kit. Take the lead charger out the same day.
The cores from that lead set still come back for the core refund. The new lithium battery does not create a core charge. Keep those two lines straight on the invoice so you are not waiting on a core refund that was never charged.
Replace a lead-acid pack as a set
Lead-acid batteries in one cart share one job. The weakest battery limits the cart, and a new battery wired to old ones is dragged down to the old ones. Buy the set that matches the count you have: six, eight, or four. Match the terminal style, S, UT, or UTL, to the lugs already on the cables.
Each flooded or AGM battery in that set adds an $18 core charge at checkout. Six batteries add six times $18. Eight add eight times $18. The core is refunded when we receive the old lead-acid batteries. Ship them upright, caps tight, not cracked or leaking, and tell us before you send them. Lithium batteries, chargers, and parts do not have a core charge. The core applies on a shipped order. It is waived on a local delivery. There is no waiver because a driver might pick the cores up.
Parts and pages that match this
- Fitment guide
- Shop
- Lead-acid vs lithium
- Shipping
- Returns
- Warranty
- Contact
- Chargers
- Parts
- 48V/72V converter
- Battery sets
- Lead-acid batteries
- Lead-acid vs lithium
The price for a cart that should stay on lead-acid is the price on the product page, not a number in this article. Lithium golf cart kits from every brand we sell ship free to the lower 48 by curbside truck freight. Parts, chargers and small batteries ship free on orders of $150 or more, or $14.95 below that. Interstate lead-acid batteries ship on a freight quote: we call you with the price before we charge shipping. We ship a cart that should stay on lead-acid. We do not list a storefront address. Local delivery is only the area named on the shipping page. A city page on this site is not a statement that a driver covers that city.
