PUMA F40

[Maharishi]

Whilst I was away someone was asking about the Puma. After the Alber Adventure I tried a Puma on the salesman's recommendation. However, it was before I found this site so I had no reason to think that I'd be trying to review it for others and didn't test it thoroughly.

The first thing that I noticed, compared to the Alber, it weighs a ton. I'm a C4/5 tetra and can't easily chair-to-chair to transfer so I got myself from my chair to my bed and then my carer swapped chairs over. You could just tell by the time and effort it took that the thing was VERY heavy and very hard to manouevre with the motors disengaged. Once I once I was in it, it seemed fine but nothing special. I wasn't expecting to report on it so unfortunately didn't really try to remember much about it's response etc. Up until now I've only ever had bog-standard Powertec chairs and it really didn't seem much of a step-up from there to me, unlike the Alber.

The nail in the coffin came when I tried to go out it in. I have a Brotherhood Sharan WAV and the chair wouldn't go up the ramp! It seemed to bottom out before the back wheels got on and they just spun uselessly. It took A LOT of pushing force from my helper to get it past this point and into the car. There is no lowering suspension on my WAV so the ramp is moderately steep but still, that's pathetic. From then on it sat unused for the rest of my trial.

[Burgerman]

Thats why my anti tip wheels are very short, and 4 inches high. Lower or longer may stop it tipping you out if you are ham fisted, but they stop you doing much else either.