Golf cart lights and street-legal kits

Most of this section comes down to one piece of homework and one wiring question. The homework is finding out what your city, county or state actually requires, because the list is set locally and no page on the internet can tell you for your street. The wiring question is where 12 volts comes from on a cart whose battery pack is 36 or 48.

Start with the rules where you live

Two different things get called a street-legal golf cart. One is a golf cart, under 20 mph, allowed on certain local roads by a city or county ordinance, with whatever equipment that ordinance names. The other is a low-speed vehicle (LSV), a federal class of vehicle that does 20 to 25 mph, carries a 17-digit VIN and a set list of equipment, and is titled and registered through the state like a car.

Both start with lights, which is why they share a hub. The street-legal guide lays out the two routes, the typical equipment list and what it costs; the LSV page covers what an LSV is and whether a converted cart can become one in your state. Read whichever matches your plan before buying a kit, because the kit you need depends on it.

What a kit includes, and what it does not

A street-legal kit is headlights, taillights with brake lights, turn signals with a column switch and flasher, a brake pedal switch, a wiring harness with a fuse and usually a horn. That covers the lighting line of almost every ordinance and most of the lighting line of the federal LSV standard.

It does not include mirrors, seat belts, reflectors, a windshield, a parking brake or a VIN, and the reducer that makes the lights work on an electric cart is often a separate line on the order. The mirror and seat belt pages cover those two; reflectors are a $15 pack from any auto parts store.

If the cart already has headlights and your town only wants signals added, the turn signal kit page covers the add-on kits. If you only want to see at night and the cart never leaves the community, the light kit guide has basic headlight and taillight kits for about half the price of a full street-legal set.

Powering 12V lights on a 36V or 48V cart

Every light kit sold is 12 volt. A gas cart has a 12V battery under the seat and the kit wires to it. An electric cart does not: its pack is 36 or 48 volts, and there is no 12V supply unless the maker fitted one.

The right answer is a voltage reducer (a DC to DC converter) that takes the full pack voltage and gives 12V out. A 30 amp unit is about $30 to $70 for an import unit or about $85 to $115 for a Reliance from a golf cart parts shop; either mounts near the batteries and runs a full LED kit, a horn and a sound bar with room to spare. Buy the one rated for your pack voltage; a 48V reducer on a 36V cart will not work properly, and most are now sold as 36V to 48V input to avoid the question.

The old answer was to tap two 6V batteries in the pack for 12V. Do not. It drains those two faster than the rest, the pack goes out of balance, and the charger cannot fix it. On a lithium pack it is not possible at all without voiding the warranty, so a lithium cart needs the reducer regardless.

Kits are body-specific

Headlights live in the front cowl and taillights in the rear body, and those parts change with the body style, not the model name. A Club Car DS kit and a Precedent kit are different parts. An EZGO TXT kit comes in a 1996 to 2013 version and a 2014 and later version; RXV kits split at 2016 and share nothing with TXT. Yamaha Drive and Drive2 take different kits, and the older G-series is a third family.

Universal kits avoid this by bolting the headlights to a bar under the cowl and surface-mounting the taillights. They cost less and fit anything, including odd carts and six-seaters, and they look like what they are. The fitment pages for Club Car, EZGO and Yamaha tell you which body you have from the serial plate, and the fitment finder does the same thing faster.

Mirrors, belts and the rest

Mirrors are the cheapest item on any list. A driver’s side mirror and either a rearview or passenger side mirror satisfy the LSV standard and almost every ordinance; a folding set is about $20 to $50. Seat belts are retractable lap belts bolted through the seat frame, about $30 a pair, and required at every seat for an LSV. Neither takes more than an hour.

Reflectors, a horn and a slow-moving vehicle triangle round out the usual ordinance list. The horn is a local or state item, not part of the federal LSV standard, but most deluxe light kits include one. After that it is paperwork, which the street-legal guide covers.