I'm in the process of applying for a new power chair. Medicare is my primary insurance than my father's policy is secondary. For the last 20+ years I have been using a FWD chair. Have used an Omegatrac in 98 to now currently using an Invacare FWD for the last 6 years.
After having used an FWD chair for quite some time, I am kind of partial to them as of right now. However, I demoed a Permobil F3, Quickie S-646, and a Frontier V6 MWD chair.
I would really have liked to try a Frontier V6 FWD, but they are not Group 3 coded for any kind of Medicare reimbursement or coverage and unfortunately I cannot buy one out-of-pocket at this time. The Frontier FWD would have been my first choice if it was at least partially paid for by Medicare.
After spending quite a bit of time reading around here on what seems to me like an incredibly awesome site for info about power mobility devices, I have narrowed my choices down to the Quickie RWD and Frontier MWD. I more than likely will not go with the RWD as the chair I demoed was 18" wide and the seat and backrest was not comfortable at all as I need a 16" width seat and backrest to be comfortable and not float around. Also because the rep from Quickie will not give me at least a full 2 or 3 days to give the chair a really good try out.
With that said, I will more than likely shoot for the Frontier V6 MWD chair. Reasons are: Fairly comfortable and smooth ride even with narrow indoor drive wheels. I do have some extra bucks where I could buy the ATV drive tires and larger caster wheels as an upgrade. Also, narrowed this choice down to being able to procure the capability to do some customized drive setting programming by getting the dongle that everybody talks about here. This I will have to talk to BM at length off-line.
First off, I am definitely not an electronics guru. I know just enough to get myself in trouble.
However, I have a few questions:
Has anyone, who has this chair, ever had any serious problems with either the electronics, motors, or other mechanical issues? If so, how long did it take you to get the parts to get the situation fixed? If I am right, I believe the main supplier is out in Indiana or somewhere in the Midwest?
This I do know about power chairs as has also been discussed here. You always want to try and get the highest amp rated joystick if possible. By the way, I am looking for all the help I can get. So if I am wrong on anything I say here, please correct me and let me know what the best way is to correct my thinking.
I will be getting the R-Net controller with the Frontier. I do not see anywhere in their specifications about the amperage of that controller. Are they available in 100A or possibly 120A?
Anyone that uses this chair with the ATV tires, are you able to get into a minivan with the wide beast? I have pretty much just enough room getting my Invacare and/or the Omegatrac in my minivan now. However, they are much narrower than the MWD with the fat tires.
Has anyone using the ATV tires got a flat tire out in the middle of nowhere? How did you handle the situation?
Is using the pneumatic casters that much smoother of a ride then the solid casters? As you can see with these last 2 questions, a concerning theme of mine is if I was to use pneumatic tires, is it really worth it versus using the solid casters and drive tires?
The C7 model has smaller front casters than the back ones. If I was to buy the larger size casters for the front, would I also need to get new forks for the bigger size tires and rims? In conjunction with this, if I was to put on the ATV drive tires and large casters all the way around, will the chair still stay level and how would this be done? Is it something I would have to readjust manually?
I see that there is an optional accessory power port to plug in 12V accessories and charge via USB. Is this set up with a step down transformer attached to both batteries so both batteries are drained equally rather than attached to one of the batteries thus having them drained unequally?
Some of these accessories are crazy expensive and I think could probably be made by a friend of mine for a much cheaper price.
Thank you everyone here for your time and help answering these questions. Thank you Burgerman for starting and continuing to maintain an incredibly awesome resource for powered mobility devices.