Really Getting Around

As I said in my last post, Barb had done a number of inquiries about golf carts and was told that there was a fellow in the park who bought and refurbished golf carts. He resold them at a reasonable price but people in the park told us to expect to pay about $1500 for a refurbished golf cart.

A different fellow in the park was selling a golf cart and had marked it down from $1600 to $900 because he was going back up north the next day and was selling his place.

Barb quickly got me out of my comfy chair and down the street to see it. We took it for a test drive. We went my sister's place to get her and her husband's opinion. They noted that it had brand new batteries that were bought in January 2012. The batteries are normally the most expensive part of the cart.

They also noted that it had a new roof and rain cover which is the second most expensive part on a golf cart.

So we went back to purchase it but found out that the guy wouldn't take a cheque. He wanted us to pay cash. We didn't have that much cash. I gave up and started to walk home but Barb tried to talk him into taking a cheque.

While Barb was trying to convince him to take a cheque, I went to a neighbour's house and she said that I should talk to the fellow at the park who repairs golf carts. She said he offered the guy $800 for the cart and the guy wouldn't take it. We phoned the repair guy and he said that it was a good deal at $900.

Eventually Barb convinced the guy to take a cheque. It turned out to be helpful we knew the neighbours. So he felt we were trustworthy enough.

So we had a golf cart. It was a nice baby blue colour and had some decals on it. We were told that every cart in the park had to have the owner's lot number on it, so that if we drove badly the people in the park could report us to the management.

Also there were decals on the cart that said “Ed and Alice”. It turned out that the guy we bought the cart from wasn't Ed and his wife wasn't Alice. He said the cart came with the house when he bought it. Those must have been the names of the people who had the home before him.

We had the cart for a few days and it started to give us problems. 

When we stepped on the accelerator sometimes we would press ten or twenty times before we could get the cart going. This was embarrassing if we were at a stop sign and there was someone behind waiting for us.

It was also a bumpy ride. Barb noticed that one of the tires was smaller than the others.

Then one of the headlights went out.

Also Barb wasn't happy that battery charge dial didn't work. We didn't know when we needed to recharge the batteries. She was out one time with Sarah and the battery died. She was a long way from home and had to push the cart home while Sarah steered. Not only that it was raining hard at the time.

So Barb made an appointment to have it looked at by the golf cart repair guy in the park. She told him about the problem with the accelerator, the head light, the small tire and asked him to install a battery charger dial.

The repair guy was busy hosting relatives for a week.  So he couldn't look at our cart right away but we waited until he was free. Then he came by and picked up the cart and gave Barb a loaner to use while he was fixing ours.

I didn't get to drive the loaner but Barb said it was a cadillac of golf carts and made our cart look cheap.

Anyway, the repair guy had our cart fixed in a day or two. He found a rusted wire connecting the batteries to the accelerator and replaced it. He put in a new headlight. He installed a new battery charge dial.

Barb was happy with all that but she asked him what he did with the small tire. The repair guy said it was just a little flat. All he did was pump it up. It wasn't actually a smaller tire.

We became the talk of the park when people found out that we thought the tire was smaller than the others and it only needed to be pumped up. 

But it was all good now.