Golf Cart Serial Number Lookup: Find It, Date It, Value It
Every golf cart carries a serial plate that tells you the year it was built — and the year, with the brand and the battery, is the starting point for any honest valuation.
By Joey Bouza, Founder, US Golf Cart Connection · Updated October 22, 2026
A golf cart's serial number lives on a small metal or foil plate riveted to the frame or body. Read it correctly and you get the model year, the model, and sometimes the production week — which is how dealers price a trade-in before they even look at the batteries. This guide shows where the plate is on each major brand, how to turn the number into a year, and what the year does to the value.
Where to find the serial plate
| Brand | Where to look | What the plate says |
|---|---|---|
| Club Car | Inside the glove box on the passenger side, or on the frame under the dash | A letter prefix followed by digits; the first two digits after the letters are the model year |
| E-Z-GO | Under the seat on the passenger side, or on the frame near the accelerator pedal | A serial number plus a manufacturer's number; the manufacturer's number encodes model and year |
| Yamaha | Under the seat, on the frame rail, or on the dash near the floor | A model code (G16, G19, G22, G29, Drive2 and so on) and a serial; the code gives the generation |
| ICON, Evolution, Bintelli and other recent brands | Usually under the seat on the frame, and on the VIN plate if the cart is an LSV | A VIN-style number on street-legal carts; the dealer's sale paperwork gives the year |
Don't confuse the serial plate with the battery date codes, the motor tag, or a dealer's inventory sticker. The serial plate is the one riveted to the chassis, and it is unique to that cart.
Turn the number into a year
- Club Car: the two digits immediately after the letter prefix are the year (a number beginning 'PQ09…' is a 2009), and the next two are the week of production. Club Car publishes the full decoder.
- E-Z-GO: the manufacturer's number on the plate begins with a letter that identifies the model, followed by digits that give the year and week. E-Z-GO's dealer chart maps the letter codes; a dealer will read it from a photo in seconds.
- Yamaha: the model code narrows the cart to a production span (G22 and G19 are 1990s–2000s, G29 Drive is 2007–2016, Drive2 is 2017 on) and the serial dates it within that span. Yamaha dealers keep the chart.
- Recent import brands: the year is on the manufacturer's certificate of origin and the dealer invoice; keep those with the cart, because the plate alone may not say.
What the year tells you about value
Age matters less on a golf cart than on a car, because the expensive part — the battery pack — gets replaced on its own schedule. A fifteen-year-old Club Car on a new lithium pack can be worth more than a five-year-old cart on tired lead-acid cells. The pattern in our live listings is consistent:
- Under 5 years: closest to new pricing; buyers are paying for warranty cover and the original battery's remaining life.
- 5–12 years: the heart of the used market for the big three brands. Expect one battery replacement in the cart's past and price the next one in.
- 12–20 years: value depends on the frame (aluminum Club Cars age best), the drivetrain (48V beats 36V), and whether it has been rebuilt.
- 20+ years: a platform for a custom build, or a flat-neighborhood runabout at a low price. Judge the frame and the electrics, not the year.
Once you have the year, our value guide shows the current asking-price medians for your brand and type, drawn from listings on this site right now.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the serial number the same as the model number?
- No. The model (TXT, Precedent, i40) identifies the design; the serial number identifies the individual cart and, on the big three brands, encodes the year.
- Can I date a cart without the serial plate?
- Roughly, from the body style, controller, and battery layout — a dealer can usually place it within a few years. The plate or the original paperwork is the only exact source.
- Does an older cart mean a cheaper cart?
- Not reliably. Battery type and age, lithium conversions, lifts, and street-legal titling move the price more than the year does for carts over about five years old.
- My Club Car plate is missing. Now what?
- Club Car can sometimes identify the cart from the frame stamping and the controller; a dealer can help. Without a plate, price it as an unknown year.
- Where is the VIN on a street-legal golf cart?
- An LSV has a separate VIN plate, usually on the frame near the driver's side or under the seat, in addition to the manufacturer's serial. The VIN is what the DMV titles.
About the author
Joey Bouza — Founder, US Golf Cart Connection
Founder of Prospects International, the Florida marketing firm behind the US Connection family of marketplaces, including this one for golf carts.
Prices and counts in our guides come from live listings on this site and are recalculated hourly. Where we describe typical repair, battery or transport costs we say so and keep them qualitative, and we never publish a number we haven't measured or sourced.