WheelchairDriver

Has anyone used the Motability scheme to get their chair? We have to get a power wheelchair for my 22 year old daughter - long story; at Uni and had a Solo conversion for her manual which has proved to be useless. Any recommendations for a good outdoor/indoor chair, and any experience of the scheme for wheelchairs?

Go to wheelchair services.

Free chair for indoor and some outdoor use. Doctor can assess?

It will be basic, but free. Using Motobility for a chair seems a bit crazy to me.

Or ebay.

My advice is to watch eBay very closely, and do your best to hang out with what you have now for as long as you can, until you can pick up something off eBay.

The reason I say that is that in Australia, and I assume elsewhere in the world, wheelchairs have negligible resale value. I've been watching eBay for months, searching for a particular model chair in excellent condition, and I've seen heaps of chairs that have been hardly or never used go unsold for between 5% and 10% of their original cost. Or, in dollar terms, I've often seen $6000 wheelchairs go unsold for under $500, with some going unsold for around $300. And these are chairs that little old ladies only used to go to church on Sundays! (Well, something like that. They're hardly used, usually because the user didn't like them, or it was only the spare chair, or the user was in a nursing home, or the user didn't need it around the house and only used it to go to the doctor's or down the club...)

Seriously, if you're not eligible for health insurance or government assistance, then eBay is the way to get a really good condition chair at a dirt cheap price. Just stay away from the ones that were used day-in-day-out by somebody confined to a wheelchair - they've taken a hiding and aren't in as good condition as the seller believes they are. But if there's no paint on the chassis, and no damage to the vinyl, and no scratches or visible damage to the chair anywhere, and the tyres have most of their tread, then the chair is probably worth getting.

You'll see heaps of chairs on there in good condition with an asking price in the thousands, but unless you need special features that only those chairs have, then you're better off hanging out for one in really good condition going for less than $800. A few months ago I saw a brand new $5200 chair with tilt and other options go for $900 after some frantic bidding at the last minute of the auction. It had been bought for someone in a nursing home, but the person they bought it for didn't like it and refused to use it. In fact, I've seen a few that were bought for someone in a nursing home and ended up being hardly used.

You don't have to spend a fortune to get a good chair, if you're prepared to wait a while and settle for any brand or model that comes up for auction which meets your basic criteria.

Falco

Hi, I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum, but I'm having trouble with my Invacare tdx sr. While I was rolling yesterday, the motors locked up. We stopped turned the chair on and off and it worked. Not long after it happened again and the chair started spinning uncontrollably in a 360° circle. Without going into detail, it was really dangerous until the chair finally stopped on its own, almost throwing me out! Anyone ever have this happen? Any advice?

Thanks!

No. But there are enough safety devices and safe electronic checking algo stuff happening that this should not be able to happen.

I suggest you get the controller manufacturer (Dynamic, PG Drives etc to take a look. They will be keen to help as that is a danger that they wouldn't want happening. They would be liable.

Thanks,
I was very lucky I was not near a curb, road, other people, or a number of other ugly scenarios. I've been using a chair for 40 years, and never had something like this happen.

Sounds like a faulty joystick unit. Not the pod, but the actual joystick itself. I fit my chairs with an emergency power disconnect loop. That you can pull out in the event anything "bad" happens. Especially important with this home built one http://www.wheelchairdriver.com/BM-MK3- ... rchair.htm

Tom wrote:Hi, I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum, but I'm having trouble with my Invacare tdx sr. While I was rolling yesterday, the motors locked up. We stopped turned the chair on and off and it worked. Not long after it happened again and the chair started spinning uncontrollably in a 360° circle. Without going into detail, it was really dangerous until the chair finally stopped on its own, almost throwing me out! Anyone ever have this happen? Any advice?

Thanks!

I know this is an older post but that joystick is on recall. I received a notice about it several months ago. That might not be the cause of your issue though.