My 2013 Gem E2 goes into turtle mode when batteries are run down to about 70%. Any thoughts on what is going on? Batteries are 2 year old Polaris AGM. Everything is stock. Driving on mostly flat paved streets.
The relationsip between your dash display and your battery pack is complicated. Sometimes they become out of sync and the display does not reflect actual SOC.
One possibility is that you have a battery that is failing or just out of balance. This is something that should be checked and corrected at least every couple months or it will kill that battery, or even lead to cascade failure of your whole pack. (especially AGM if they don’t have a means to add more water).
Check Pack Balance
Do a complete Battery pack checkup. Measure each for V with a handheld Volt meter. The batteries should all be within 0.10 v of each other or better. Check all of them, and keep V notes on each batteriy. Charge the low ones up with an external 12v car charger until they match the high batteries.
Capacity Test Batteries
Once your batteries are all charged and balanced, Do a good hot lap around the neighborhood(longer is more obvious). When you come back, check V on each battery again. If all is well, they still should all be withing 0.10. If you have a bad battery it will be out of balance again.
Load test your batteries - Brake stand test
Put your meter on Batt1. Use spring clamps ti fasten the probes on the battery or get an assistant. Note the V. Press the brake firmly and then the accelerator about half way so it tries to move but you can hold it with the brake. Note how low the V drops on this battery. Repeat for all 6 batteries. If there is a punk battery, it will show up.
Check all connections
A loose/dirty connection will also trigger a turtle. If all batteries check out fine, then a bad connection can be spotted if you fasten your meter to the POS and NEG on top of your controller. Note your pack V while at rest, then again under load. The voltage drop/difference will be fairly large. Look for signs of heat. or even give a quick tap test on the connections and feel for temperature building after a run/load test. This could be any one of the 22 big cable connections between the front and back of the car.
Check Charge profile
Two years ago when the batteries were changed out was the charge profile also checked to see if it was set for the correct battery type? It is easy to overlook. If not correct, it could over/under charge a pack and eventually ruin a set of batteries in a few weeks.
Battery failure
Batteries are not made like they used to be. Depending on how you use the cart, I wouldn’t expect more than a year out of a set of cheap AGM cells. If you got 2 I’d say you are not using your car much, or very hard. Better if they are actually Polaris certified for cart use, but they are almost all out of China and selling us back thin recycled lead plates. I am not a fan in using sealed “Maintenance Free” wet cells for cart use either.
Excellent response. I will check all this week and repost the results. Thanks
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