Texman 182g Mods

i made a visit to the battery and bulb store where i purchased the GC6 batteries right at 2 years ago.  They said that was about right for GC batteries as far as life span.  i think they should last longer and i know many of you have gotten many more years than that.  The battery guy did make a point in that the rv usage that the battery is always in a state of charge and discharge and that is what causes them to decrease in performance.  I would like your thoughts on that.  I thought the normal method for storage was to plug in the pod to shore power and let the on board charger maintain the batteries.  that is what i have done and now the batteries are questionable.  Of course they couldn't do a Spec gravity test, which i think is odd for a battery shop.  I will pick one of those up myself.  

i replaced the batteries.  They have a 1 year warranty, so no prorate.  They just load tested them and one was about 60% and the other 75% of new cranking amps.  The acid levels were fine.  what really spooked me was the 12.2 volts in less than an hour in the pod. 

So now i have a good base line.  new batteries and a new Hall meter to monitor.  I have read on the forum how to test the current and will try and do that tonight to find the true loads and what they are.  maybe i can even get that hall meter set up correctly.

Deep cycle batteries like golf cart batteries lifetime is usually rated by number and depth of cycles rather than calendar lifetime. There are compromises in the design that make the batteries last through more deep cycles but lowers their calendar life compared to say a starting battery if they are just floated, especially if they are kept at higher storage temperatures. I've usually gotten about 5 years out of mine but I cycle them quite a bit and live in a warm climate. The 5 years seems pretty typical for actual golf cart use as well.