The Highlands County snowbird's golf cart summer storage checklist

September 21, 2026

Sebring Golf Cart Repair takes a predictable run of calls every October and November: the cart that was fine in April will not move, will not charge, or dies halfway to the clubhouse. Most of those carts were parked in May with a partial charge and left alone for five months in a closed garage. Here is the short version of what to do before you leave: charge the pack fully, water it, clean and coat the terminals, disconnect the main negative or leave the cart on a maintenance charger, bleed the tires up to pressure, and leave the parking brake off. On the way back, load-test the pack before you assume it is dead. The long version, and the reasons, follow.

What a Highlands County summer does to a parked cart

Highlands County is not a mild place to leave a lead-acid pack sitting. NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 normals for the Archbold Biological Station, the county’s long-running climate site, count 92 days a year with a high of 90°F or above, and the June through August average high is 93°F. A closed garage runs hotter than the air outside it, and a battery compartment under a seat runs hotter still.

Heat does two things to a flooded lead-acid battery that is doing nothing at all. First, it raises the self-discharge rate, so a pack loses charge faster sitting still in August than it would in January. Second, as the charge drops, the lead sulfate that forms on the plates during every discharge starts to harden. Sulfate that gets recharged within a day or two dissolves back into the electrolyte. Sulfate that sits for weeks in a hot garage crystallizes, and that capacity is gone for good. A pack left at half charge in May can be sitting at a fraction of that by September, with hardened sulfate on every plate.

Then there is the water. The muggy season here runs from late April to mid-November, and the summer months bring most of the year’s rain: 25.68 of the station’s 54.23 annual inches fall in June, July, and August. Nothing in a garage dries out. Battery terminals, cable ends, and the pins in the charge port oxidize steadily, and a light film of acid mist on the battery tops turns into a conductive paste that slowly drains the pack across the top of the case. Brake cams and cables that were free in May can seize by October. We have a whole page on the cart that sat all summer and will not start because it is one of the most common calls of the year.

Before you leave: the checklist

Do these in order, in the week before you go.

1. Charge the pack fully. Let the charger run to a complete shutoff, not just overnight. A fully charged lead-acid battery self-discharges more slowly and sulfates far less than a half-charged one. This single step matters more than everything else on the list combined.
2. Water flooded batteries after that full charge. Distilled water only, to about a quarter inch above the plates. Never fill before charging; the electrolyte expands as it charges and an overfilled cell pushes acid out onto the battery top.
3. Clean the battery tops and terminals. A baking soda solution neutralizes the acid film, then rinse, dry, and coat the terminals with a terminal protectant. This blocks the humidity corrosion that builds all summer.
4. Decide: disconnect or maintain. The best option is a quality automatic maintenance charger that holds the pack at float and turns itself off and on. If you do not trust the charger to be left unattended, or the garage has no reliable power, disconnect the main negative cable so nothing on the cart draws the pack down. Do not leave an old timer-style charger plugged in for five months; a charger that cannot stop on its own will boil a pack dry, which is exactly the fault behind the rotten egg smell call.
5. Set the tow/run switch to TOW if your cart has one. It takes the controller out of the circuit and stops the small drain that some controllers pull at rest.
6. Air the tires up to the top of their range. Most cart tires want 18 to 22 psi. A tire that sits flat-spotted for five months in the heat often comes back with cracks in the sidewall.
7. Leave the parking brake off and chock the wheels instead. A brake set for five months in a humid garage tends to seize to the drum.
8. Cover the cart with a breathable cover, not plastic. Plastic traps the humidity against the cart.

The whole list takes about an hour. If you would rather have it done for you, the storage prep is quoted with a tune-up and includes every item above plus a load test, so you leave knowing the real state of the pack.

If the cart is lithium

Lithium packs make summer storage much simpler. They self-discharge very slowly, do not sulfate, and need no watering. Charge to roughly half or a bit above, not full, and leave it. Most lithium packs have a battery management system that puts itself to sleep; check the manufacturer’s instructions for the storage state it wants. Still clean and coat the cable ends, and still do the tires and brake.

What to expect in October

The cart that was stored properly usually comes back fine. Reconnect the negative, plug in the charger, and let it finish. Check tire pressure, work the brake pedal a few times, and drive it gently for the first mile.

The cart that was not stored properly shows one of three things.

The charger will not turn on. Most automatic chargers need to see a minimum pack voltage before they start. A pack that self-discharged for five months in the heat can sit below that threshold, so the charger sees nothing and does nothing. Owners often read this as a dead charger or a dead pack. Sometimes it is neither: a recovery charge from the truck brings the pack up to where the wall charger recognizes it. The will not charge page walks through the checks.

It charges, then dies fast. This is sulfation. The pack takes a charge but the hardened plates cannot hold it, and the range keeps dropping on every trip. A load test on each battery tells the difference between a pack that has one bad battery dragging the rest down and a pack that is finished. On a younger pack, replacing the one bad battery is the fix. On an older one it is not, because a new battery in series with tired ones gets pulled down fast.

It clicks but will not move. Usually the tow/run switch is still in TOW, which is the free fix. Otherwise it is a pack too weak to pull in the solenoid under load, or corroded cable ends adding resistance. See the clicks but will not move page.

Book the recommission visit before you need the cart

The recommission service is the same as the storage prep in reverse: reconnect, full charge, water, terminal service, brake check, tire pressure, then a load test on every battery with the readings written down. It is quoted with the tune-up at $100 to $200 for an electric cart, and the $50 to $100 service call is applied to whatever work you approve. Book it for the week you get back, before the first trip to the course, so a weak battery gets caught in the driveway and not on the way home.

Every price we work from is on the pricing page: a lead-acid pack is $1,200 to $1,800 installed, cable and terminal service $75 to $150, a charger repair $100 to $300. If the load test says the pack has another season in it, you will hear that instead of a sales pitch. We are an independent mobile service, not a dealer, and we come to your driveway anywhere from Sun ‘n Lake to Lake Placid.