Best 6 volt golf cart batteries: Trojan, Interstate, Duracell, Crown

Buy the Trojan T-105 if there is a Trojan dealer within a reasonable drive and you plan to keep the cart five years or more. Buy the Duracell EGC2 from Sam’s Club if you want to spend about $500 less on the set and are honest about watering it. Everything in between on this list is a fine battery, and the right one is usually the one the shop in your town stocks and will warranty. All of them are group GC2, so they all fit any cart that takes 6 volt golf cart batteries.

Six of these make a 36V cart: Club Car DS through 1994, EZGO Marathon, Medalist and TXT through 2009, Yamaha G14 and G16. Eight make a 48V cart, which in practice means a Yamaha Drive or Drive2 built with the eight-battery long-range option. The other battery guides cover 8V and 12V sets, chargers and lithium; the battery calculator will tell you whether a flooded set or a lithium pack is cheaper over ten years for the way you drive.

Group GC2: why they all fit

Every battery on this page is BCI group GC2, which is about 10.3 inches long, 7.1 wide and a little over 11 tall with the posts. It is the standard golf cart 6V case and has been since the 1960s. Trays on 36V carts are built for six of them, and Yamaha’s long-range 48V tray for eight. The one exception is the GC2H, a third of an inch taller, which the Trojan T-145 uses; the DS and TXT have the room, but measure under the seat on anything else.

Terminals are the other thing to check. Most GC2 batteries come with a threaded stud or a combination post with a wing nut. Your cables have lugs for one or the other, and the adapters are cheap, but it is a trip back to the store if you do not notice.

The 20-hour rating and what it means for miles

Amp-hour labels on golf cart batteries are the 20-hour rate: the capacity you get draining the battery slowly, over 20 hours, to 1.75 volts a cell. A 225Ah T-105 delivers 225Ah at about 11 amps. A golf cart does not draw 11 amps. It draws 50 to 75 on the flat and 200 or more on a hill, and at those rates a lead-acid battery gives up noticeably less than the label.

That is why Trojan also publishes a minutes-at-75-amps figure: about 115 for the T-105, 132 for the T-125 and 145 for the T-145. Those numbers scale with real driving. Use the 20-hour number to compare one battery against another, since every maker quotes it the same way, and the 75-amp number to think about range.

In practice a 36V cart on six 225Ah batteries goes 15 to 20 miles on a charge if you only use half the capacity, which is the rule for making flooded batteries last. A set of T-145s stretches that by three or four miles.

Six for 36V, eight for 48V

Six 6V in series is 36V and that is the whole story for the older carts. The 48V case is the Yamaha Drive and Drive2, which Yamaha sells with six 8V as standard and eight 6V as the long-range option. Eight T-105s is 48V at 225Ah, which is more capacity than the six 8V set most 48V carts use. If your Yamaha has eight batteries under the seat, 6V batteries are the right buy and the 8-volt page is not for you.

Every other 48V cart, the Club Car DS from 1995, Precedent, TXT48, RXV, Yamaha G19 and G22, and standard Drives, has a six-slot or four-slot tray and takes 8V or 12V batteries. Do not try to fit eight 6V in a six-slot tray; there is no room and the wiring diagram does not exist.

Trojan or the warehouse club

A set of six T-105s runs about $1,150 to $1,500 before core charges. A set of six Duracell EGC2s is about $800 to $1,050. The difference, $350 to $500, is roughly one year of extra life if you believe what owners report, and that is about what the numbers say: five to seven years from a well-kept Trojan set, four to five from the Duracell.

It is a fair trade either way. The Trojan wins if you keep carts a long time and water on schedule. The Duracell wins if you are not sure you will keep the cart, or you are the type who forgets the water, because then neither set reaches year six and you may as well have spent less. Interstate, Crown and U.S. Battery sit in the middle on price and life, and the one your local dealer stocks is usually the sensible pick because the warranty is a short drive.

Which one for your cart

Cart	Years	Voltage	Count	Pick
Club Car DS	to 1994	36V	6	T-105 or Duracell EGC2
Yamaha Drive, Drive2 with the long-range tray	2011 on	48V	8	T-105 or Interstate GC2-XHD
EZGO Marathon, Medalist	to 1995	36V	6	T-125 or T-145 (resistor carts pull hard)
EZGO TXT	1996 to 2009	36V	6	T-105, Crown CR-235 or Duracell
Yamaha G14, G16	1995 to 2002	36V	6	T-105 or US2200; check GC2H height

Fitment pages for Club Car, EZGO and Yamaha show where the serial plate is if you are not certain of the year.

Install and first charge

Photograph the cables before you disconnect anything; the series wiring on an eight-battery Yamaha is easy to get wrong from memory. Pull the old set with a strap, one at a time, and clean the tray with baking soda and water. Set the new batteries with the posts oriented like the old ones, connect the series jumpers first and the main cables last, and tighten to snug plus a quarter turn; overtightening cracks posts.

Charge the set fully before the first drive and expect it to take most of a day. New flooded batteries reach full capacity after 20 to 50 cycles, so the first month will feel a little short on range. Check the water after the first week; new batteries drink more at first. The maintenance page has the watering and equalizing schedule, and the charging guide covers the charger settings.

When to go lithium instead

If you drive daily, park the cart for months at a time, or are tired of lifting 62-pound batteries every five years, run the numbers on the 36V lithium page. For a cart that goes out a few times a week in a warm garage, six good 6V batteries remain the cheaper answer, and the calculator will show it.