Nobody likes it when you have to replace the deep-cycle batteries in your golf car. It’s a big expense and involves removing and dropping off old batteries to a recycling center, and then purchasing new ones that have to be reinstalled. If you practice good maintenance on your batteries, such as recharging them at every opportunity, performing a monthly equalization charge, not letting the depth of discharge drop below 50 percent, and regular watering, it can extend battery life and the time between having to go through that whole process. But as many golf car owners and fleet operators know, maintenance is a laborious task.
Watering is perhaps the most difficult because it is the one maintenance procedure that needs to be done most often. Checking water levels on four, six, or eight batteries in your golf car is time-consuming as well as requiring gloves, goggles, a flashlight, and more. To make things easier, Single Point Watering Systems (SPWS) offer an easier way to quickly add the correct amount of water to a complete battery pack, and some systems can even monitor the electrolyte levels. Their expense, however, has steered individuals and fleet owners away from trying them. This leads to the question, are single-point watering systems worth the cost?
Time Saver Or Just A Luxury
A SPWS is a huge time saver and also eliminates the chance of overfilling, underfilling, and the need to determine if the water level in each battery cell is at the recommended 1/4-inch below the bottom of the fill well. After you’ve put on your safety gear, removed the vent caps on each battery, checked the electrolyte levels, added water to each cell, and reinstalled the vent caps, it averages 10-15 minutes on a typical 48-volt golf car. That may not seem to be a lot of time for someone who owns only one vehicle. When it comes to someone with multiple vehicles or a company with a fleet of vehicles, however, watering manually once per month adds up when the labor cost of a technician is multiplied by the number of vehicles to be maintained. In cases where there are 100 or more vehicles, it can average $1800 to $3600 annually.
A SPWS reduces the maintenance time to about one to two minutes per vehicle. For a single golf car owner, it might be considered a simple luxury, but for a fleet, reducing the time also reduces the annual cost. For the same 100 car fleet watered once per month, the maintenance time per year is reduced to 20 to 40 hours, and the cost is reduced to $300 to $600 per year. That’s a reduction in cost of $1500 to $3000 per year or $7500 to $15,000 over a five-year life expectancy of the batteries.
A universal SPWS kit for a 48-volt application that you assemble yourself is about $100-$140. Vehicle specific kits range from $200-$300. So for the individual owner, the cost isn’t a big factor, and considering a SPWS can last five years or more, it can effectively help make your battery pack last longer. For fleets, the initial cost could be much more expensive. The cost for the 100 car fleet is approximately $10,000. With this type of investment, however, a golf course fleet could, for example, expect the payback period to be three to seven years with extended battery life as a bonus. Not every fleet is the same, and you’ll have to calculate the numbers for yourself to determine what’s best for your particular fleet. Check the websites on various watering system manufacturers. They often have an online calculator that can help measure your return on investment.
For individual golf car owners, however, if you’re the type that forgets to water your batteries and you need to replace them every couple of years, a SPWS with an available monitoring system may also save you money in the long run. There are many documented cases in which consistent watering, equalizing charging, and never letting the batteries run below a 50-percent DOD have allowed deep-cycle batteries to last 10-years or more. For more information on battery maintenance and SPWS available for your golf car, visit www.usbattery.com.
