This forum is awesome and glad to be a new member. I have a few questions regarding replacing batteries. I have a 2001 4-person, a 2002 4-person, and a 2008 E6. Yes, I love Gem’s…
The 2001 has 2 new gel batteries in it and 4 old gels. It runs fine for about 6 miles then hits turtle mode. Any thoughts?
The 2002 4-person has all flooded and the battery meter is extremely dysfunctional and starts buzzing at 10 miles. Can this be a battery problem? Which batteries should I put in?
The 2008 E6 has the original gel batteries. Yes, 5 years old. It is only getting a 6-10 mile range depending on hills. HELP!!!
You need to monitor the voltage of each battery under load to find the bad ones. When you hit turtle-mode pull over and apply a load-tester to each of the batteries in-turn. Whichever one is dead or dying should be replaced.
You probably have already heard this, but you really should replace all 6 batteries at once unless a single battery fails in the first months of use (infant mortality). Mixing and matching old and new batteries will allow the oldest/weakest one in the pack to dictate your maximum range.
5 years on OEM Gels is excellent service life. You’ve gotten all you can expect out of them at this point and should replace all 6 with brand new ones from the same production run. I recommend the NAPA Group 31 Gels which are made by Deka (who also makes them for GEM).
Although the cheap way out is to use marine deep-cycle batteries, you’re probably not going to be happy with the range or short lifetime of these cheaper alternatives. Thee’s a good reason GEM uses Trojan T-1275 flooded cells and Deka Group-31 Gel batteries.