What's the best way to modify a golf cart so it can't be easily stolen.

Add a simple kill switch in series with the with the key. Only you will know it’s there.

Put in a non-standard killswitch Hidden where it would be hard to find.
Haha, beat me by a second or two.

Remove two wheels when not in use. Disconnect the battery. A hidden master switch like described above, sorta, would help a lot if the thing was being stolen on the golf course whilst your were attending a meeting at the 19th hole.

My husband does install kill switches, but I guess the theives can overcome them easily. Unless, we start installing more sophisticated ones I guess.

@kritiper Where I live golf carts are used like cars for transportation.

@JLeslie Ah! There’s the rub! Then a hidden master switch would/should do the trick. Just be sure to shut the switch off before leaving the cart unattended or it’ll get stolen anyway. Or find a way to lock the steering wheel, like one of those anti-theft bars they have for cars. Or a chain and padlock.

^^I thought about the bars you can put across a steering wheel, but I think it’s impractical here. We’d like a sturdier way to lock up belongings too. If I had some good gadgets that I can buy at wholesale to sell to our customers, I think I could make some decent money adding it on to repair jobs.

The carts are literally driven everywhere. Supermarket, doctor, restaurants, everywhere.

Unique paint scheme.
Plaid
Purple
Flying Tigers shark face.
Paint flames on the side and give it one of those little low-rider chain steering wheels.

Store it in a garage.

@Call_Me_Jay Many of the golf carts here are unique in paint scheme, I don’t know if those are less likely to get stolen? Good question. Here they have school colors, and people’s names, and all sorts of uniqueness.

Edit: I guess maybe the base color isn’t usually very unique, it can be stripped down to that, removing the mascots and names. A lot of people have enclosures that add colors to the scheme.

I don’t know why I’m responding to you @ragingloli since you’re always so sarcastic, but like I said, the carts are used to go everywhere. They are parked in parking lots at grocery stores, community recreation centers, restaurants, the hospital, etc.

There are over 50,000 golf carts in this town of just over 100,000 people. The town is about 12 miles by 7 miles, and everywhere is accessible by golf cart.

I like the Kill Switch idea. I would imagine your husband has a greater understanding of these things as he is quite involved in cars. Those bar locks you mentioned are a pain in the ass and within a couple of weeks of purchase, most are found lying on the floor of the backseat gathering dust.

HERE is a whole page of schematics for kill switch installation you and he might peruse.

I would imagine that kill switch installation would be a nice adjunct to your business in Villages. And there will be a day when thieves will probably learn an easy way to get around this, which will create a new need, another tweak or device to prevent that. I would be ready with a solution for when that happens. You may have entered into a very profitable arms race in the Golf Cart Wars. LOL. Good luck.

Take off the steering wheel.

@Espiritus_Corvus He does install kill switches, ill pass on your link to see if it is different than what he does already.

@ragingloli Makes an excellent suggestion. Also, you could put a chain around a axle when out and about and lock it to a telephone pole. Or the bumper of a police car.

@JLeslie: Is golf cart theft a big problem there? I’d think there are cameras everywhere which would be or should be a big deterrent.

There has been some theft. I just talked to a gentleman yesterday who had his cart stolen on a day that 4 were stolen in one day. He luckily had insurance, but the insurance didn’t cover the full value of the cart.

There aren’t cameras in the rec center parking lots from what I understand. I don’t know about the shopping centers, I’ll have to look next time I’m shopping. There are cameras in the town squares, we can watch them online ourselves, you can check to see where the crowds are, but they are focused on the dance area, not the parking lots. I don’t know if there are additional parking lot cameras there.

My husband told me people have had problems with items being stolen from their golf carts also. I guess things they keep in the glove department or out in the cart. I don’t think there is a ton of theft, but enough. For the most part people don’t worry too much about theft. I mean people sometimes have their golf clubs on the back of the cart, parked, and the clubs are worth a lot too, but more and more people seem worried about it.

@JLeslie: Maybe if more people complain about theft, more cameras will be installed which will hopefully deter thieves.

^^Good point. There are cameras at the entrances of each subdivision to see who is coming and going.

@JLeslie Here’s a website. We have some neighborhoods here in NC that have carts for use for short distance. Install a steering wheel club is what one of my friends uses but there are others on the site.

Hide a gps locator on the cart, like the services they have on cell phones (find my phone). And maybe have a sticker in a prominent place saying that it’s there.

My aunt and uncle have lived on islands where golf carts are the primary transport method as well. They told me that the main deterrent to theft of the carts is, indeed, the “Club” type of steering wheel bar lock thingy.

My first question would be “How are carts stolen?”

My guess is that the thefts are not “local” to the community, wanna-be users stealing carts from those who already have them. My guess is that there are semi-organized rings traveling around with pickup trucks (or more likely enclosed vans, so that no one could see the contents) and the carts aren’t being “driven away”, but picked up and carted off by someone who will change whatever needs to be changed to make the thing no longer identifiable, and then resold – probably to an actual (remote from the community) golf course, where the user is far less likely to find his former cart.

If I’m right about that, then no amount of kill switches or other schemes to make the thing non-drivable will work, if it can be picked up, loaded onto a truck and carried away.

I doubt that every panel truck or van that enters the community (or more importantly, which leaves the community) is checked as to its contents, but that would be my guess as to what’s happening with them. (And please don’t tell me that “no one drives trucks here”, because in retirement communities people are always being moved in, or estate contents moved out.)

^^Yes, it’s believed that they are put on trailers and taken away. Most likely the cart is first driven to some location, and then loaded on a truck. Golf carts don’t have VIN numbers, or any real identifiers. I told me husband we should mark ours underneath when we eventually buy one.

Carts are loaded on trailers all the time here, so it doesn’t spark suspicion necessarily.

I’m wondering if insurance is cheaper if you have an anti theft mechanism in the cart.

How about adding a switch and a motion sensing siren to the cart. The owner flips the switch when it is parked. If the cart is moved the siren goes off and does not stop for 30 seconds.

^ Best idea yet!

Oooo!!! I found something at Harbor Fright.

Bunkerhill Vibration alarm 2 Pack $5,99 . They have a switch on the front, a sticky tape backing, and an internal battery, vibration sensor and siren.
I don’t know how well they work or how sensitive they are. But, for that price, it is worth trying.

@LuckyGuy So, if the cart is moved or started you think that alarm will sound?

That is my guess. It is certainly worth a try.
You could stick one between the seats, or under a seat, or on the sun shade, or under the steering wheel, or the brake pedal, or wherever. You want it some place where it is easy for the owner to reach yet still hidden from the crooks.
Experiment. This might be perfect for you.

@JLeslie: You can experiment with a golf cart that’s in to your place for repair. Put the alarm on it that @LuckyGuy recommends. You may be able to buy and sell them (and “install” them) for a really cheap price but still at a huge profit. Maybe $20 or $30 each? Even if you charge $10 each, at 2 for 6 bucks, $10 each is over 3x profit.

We don’t have any golf carts. We don’t own one, and we repair them at the customer’s house. I know it sounds odd that we don’t own one. I think we should have one for many reasons, plus we could make a business of buying and selling them, but we haven’t done it yet.

I think we can test it on a golf cart where we store our stock. The manager there is really nice, and we repair his golf cart. We can do it for free for him, if he agrees, and he can tell us what he thinks.

@JLeslie: I know you don’t own one – I was referring to experimenting on one that you repair.

@jca Ah. I guess I misinterpreted, because I think we should own one.

If you start installing motion sensitive sirens on golf carts and hooking them up to the battery, the crooks will quickly get smart about that and before they attempt to move the cart unhook the battery.

For that reason you might offer the option of a separate battery concealed somewhere on/in the cart.

Where are the majority of thefts taking place? Home? The store? The golf course? Burger King??