Anything on earth that you want to have a long life must be given proper care and sustenance. If this is true for human, animal and plant life, it is also true of lead-acid batteries particularly those used in electric golf carts.
Just as earthly life easily waste away when neglected, so as these types of acid batteries quickly loses life when proper maintenance is not administered. Lead acid battery maintenance requires regular and proper charging at the right time and manner in order to sustain a longer energizing capacity.
The surest way to kill the life of a lead acid battery is to allow it to stand fully discharged for a considerable length of time. During the discharged status, the acid battery’s energy supplying chemical of lead oxide transforms into non-energy storing form of lead sulfate.
When allowed to stagnate on its lead sulfate status for a long period of time, a great amount of the acid no longer changes back into the original energizing form of lead oxide even when the battery is recharged fully. The remaining lead sulfate majority composition of the ineffectively recharged battery could no longer store the same amount of energy that is used to store in the original pure lead oxide status.
The erratic habit of fully charging and then recharging the partially discharge lead acid battery would also kill the battery power in the same manner as leaving it discharged for longer periods as earlier mentioned. The best lead acid battery maintenance technique is to deeply charge the battery and then fully recharge it as soon as it is completely discharged.