Vehicles to carry a mobility scooter

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Wapinschaw

Well-Known Member
Does anyone have any experience with or knowledge of vehicles that have been adapted to carry a mobility scooter? There are lots of Wheelchair Adapted Vehicles about with lowered floors, ramps etc but what I am considering is a 4X4 like a Shogun, Discovery, XTrail or smaller types like the Vitara, RAV 4 or Freelander from which I can remove the rear seating and load a scooter into. My present vehicle is a Subaru Legacy but that does not have the internal height. The tailgate height is likely to be the main problem, my wife who will be the scooter user is able to get round and into the front seat so won't be in the scooter when the vehicle is being driven.

Also any opinions and advice regarding off road capable scooters will be welcome.
 
If you have a hoist fitted and tip the seat back forwards and then lower the steering column onto that I should imagine that a great many vehicles would be suitable.

John
 
Interesting. A friend of mine that lived on a farm and became infirm had a mobility scooter which was suitable for rough, unmade type tracks and had AT type tyres on it. So they are out there. But that came with it's own trailer designed to carry it. He also used a quad bike to go out in the fields, but there again, you would be using a trailer to take that places and it might not be suitable everywhere.

I'm sure you would find a vehicle with enough boot space to accommodate one. The Discovery, for example has a cavernous boot. But getting it up there might be the problem. The Discovery 3 & 4's rear door configuration might be a problem, so perhaps look for something with a side opening door. Although you can lower the height of Discos, so that might be of some use. Or possibly a pickup. In any case, you'd have to have a ramp or pair of ramps.
 


most vehicles can accommodate a small travel scooter
and can be equiped with a ramp or hoist.
gentle off road footpaths short grass is ok
serious off road is another matter

Tramper, Luggie, Boma are other makes
 
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I ended up having some experiences when I was looking after my mum as she was nearing the end and then some more when she went in to palliative care.

The hospice she was in was awesome and they have what they called the "popemobile" that could take a wheelchair or scooter type vehicle in the back up a small winched ramp, so that people could stay in the chair/scooter and kinda have their own seat/stay in situ when being transported about. There was also a front seat, so you could have your wife sat beside you on the journey but my mum was very sick and could not be moved. They lent me the vehicle to take her back to the farm as she wanted to smell the fresh air and see the animals one last time. It was a crazy adventure with her rocking about in the back with no muscles whatsoever ha ha. We propped her up with pillows and all sorts to try and wedge her in. She died 4 days later but it was an awesome opportunity to have her be in her favourite environment one last time. Anyway, enough of that. I think it was a french car from memory that was half van/half car. It was pretty good but not the 4x4 you are talking about. I can see the ground clearance or tail gate being too high to easily get stuff in the back,

I also took her to Batsford Arboretum before she died as she loved the colours. They had a tramper (like a previous poster has mentioned) and they do go well and handle grass, mud, gravel etc better than you would think. I was surprised how well it did. There are some steep slopes there and it managed easily with everything. Not sure I would want to take it on to properly muddy fields as it will get stuck but for basic stuff that isn't tarmac, it was amazing. Pretty quick too. I had to leg it to keep up with her. She had brain tumours, so it took a while to process stuff like "take your finger of the damned throttle mum" ha ha. Fond memories.

Good luck finding the right solution.
 
Terrain Hopper four wheel drive mobility ATV will go just about anywhere either handle bar steering or joy stick for the less able ,fantastic bit of kit the only downside is the price around about £14000 depending on spec.
 
Citreon Berlingo multispace popular for mobility conversions unfortunately not 4x4 but you can get them with a limited slip diff which makes them somewhat of a soft roader.
 
Surely two fold up / extending ramps (dog ramps?) and a small electric winch and the problem is solved? Am I missing something here?
 
rodp said:
Surely two fold up / extending ramps (dog ramps?) and a small electric winch and the problem is solved? Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...


You are not missing anything, the ramp/winch setup is a possibility but I am concerned that the height of the tailgate of the bigger 4X4 vehicles is likely to present a problem with the length of ramp needed. It's early days on this project, I need to do a lot of research yet.
 
Wapinschaw said:
You are not missing anything, the ramp/winch setup is a possibility but I am concerned that the height of the tailgate of the bigger 4X4 vehicles is likely to present a problem with the length of ramp needed. It's early days on this project, I need to do a lot of research yet.
Click to expand...

I could see the break over angle being too steep for a low ground clearance scooter, but ramps with a tipping top section would solve that.:thumb:
 
I have a lightweight powered wheelchair that can easily be manhandled into the back of the car (Ford Kuga) but it is not suitable for anything but shops and stuff with a flat surface. I also have a small scooter that breaks down into five pieces and goes in easy enough, the scooter is more stable over the rougher ground and will go where the wheelchair won't, but I still turned that over in my garden :shock:. I used to have a road worthy 8mph job, a Borgarelli, and I used to have that up forestry tracks when I lived in the Highlands, they will do more than you think.

John
 
My wife has MS and uses a wheelchair and scooter. It's a balance between size of car and size of scooter, the smaller scooters will fit easily in the back of car or SUV but they are rubbish off road due to being relatively unstable. The bigger 8mph road legal scooters will go over a fairly uneven ground and deal with inclines but short of having a van or pickup with no (or a high truck man type top) you have no chance of getting it in.

we eventually went for a batec, looks like the front end of a motorbike which fitsj to a standard wheelchairs, it's awesome. You can get it in the boot of something like a ford S Max without any disassembly, the chair one side and the batec next to it. Put some mountain bike type wheels on the chair (readily available) and it will cope pretty decently off road (forestry tracks/gradients/dry grass etc). The only down side is that as the drive unit is in the front wheel, it does lose out on traction. But for ease of stowage, portability etc it is great. Most mobility Scooters aren't allowed on trains, we got approval from norther rail that the batec was as it is effectively a standard wheelchair and a piece of luggage, I can't show you pictures of my wife's as she has travelled by train from the dales to Bradford today, something she wouldn't have been able to do before we bought it.

the trampers are more capable offroad and if you can ride straight from home, definately worth a look. You can try before you buy too, Google "tramper trails" as many parks and visitor attractions now hire them out to visitors.

the ultimate is definately the terrain hopper, but at over £12k it's out of our price bracket for now.

do check out the batec though, from a mobility and ease of stowage/loading perspective it has made a huge change to both my wife and my day to day getting around.
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I wonder what the chances of getting a 4x4 quad registered as invalid transport are, and would you be allowed to use it on trails if registered as such? I know it would be a trailer job but it would certainly get places other scooters wouldn't.
 
rodp said:
I wonder what the chances of getting a 4x4 quad registered as invalid transport are, and would you be allowed to use it on trails if registered as such? I know it would be a trailer job but it would certainly get places other scooters wouldn't.
Click to expand...

The Terrain Hopper will go more or less anywhere a Quad will go in fact it may even go places a quad can't just not so fast.
 
rodp said:
I wonder what the chances of getting a 4x4 quad registered as invalid transport are, and would you be allowed to use it on trails if registered as such? I know it would be a trailer job but it would certainly get places other scooters wouldn't.
Click to expand...

we looked into that Rodp and it was a no no where we live (yorkshire dales).
 
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