Travel scooters and folding power chairs: what heaviest piece means

Travel scooters and folding power chairs are built to go places in the trunk of a car. Before you buy one, there is one number to find and think about honestly: the weight of the heaviest piece you, or the person helping you, will have to lift. It is often very different from the total weight in the headline, and it is the number that decides whether loading the car is easy, hard or not something you can do alone.

Two ways to make a mobility product portable

Most portable models do one of two things:

• They come apart. Many travel scooters separate into a few pieces, such as the seat, the battery pack, a front section with the tiller, and a rear section with the motor. You lift each piece on its own.
• They fold. Many lightweight power chairs fold into one compact package, often with a battery that slides out. You lift the folded chair as one piece.

Some power chairs also come apart. Pride says its Go Chair separates into five pieces, with the heaviest weighing 36 pounds (Pride Mobility).

Reading the heaviest piece on a scooter

Pride lists a "Heaviest piece" on its travel scooters, and Golden lists the weight of each section. Some examples from the makers' pages:

• Pride Go Go Ultra X 3-Wheel: 95.75 pounds with batteries in total, but the heaviest piece is the 29.5-pound front section (Pride specifications).
• Golden Buzzaround LT 3-Wheel: 87 pounds assembled, with a heaviest piece of 28 pounds, a rear half of 20.5 pounds, a seat of 13.5 pounds and two 17.5-pound battery packs (Golden Technologies).
• Pride Go Go Endurance AL+: 83.2 pounds without batteries, heaviest piece 35.2 pounds (Pride specifications).
• Pride Revo 2.0 4-Wheel: 182 pounds with batteries, heaviest piece 57 pounds (Pride specifications). That is a full-size scooter that comes apart, but a 57-pound piece is a serious lift for most people.

The lesson: a scooter that weighs close to 100 pounds can still be manageable if it breaks into pieces under 30 pounds. Check every piece, not just the first one listed, and remember you will lift each one more than once on a trip.

Reading the weight of a folding chair

With a folding power chair, the folded chair is usually the heaviest piece, minus the battery if it comes out. Makers often list the chair with and without its battery:

• Pride Jazzy Carbon 27: 27.8 pounds without batteries; its 12 Ah lithium battery box weighs 4.6 pounds (Pride specifications).
• Feather Folding Power Chair: 33 pounds without batteries, folding to 27 by 28 by 13 inches (Feather Mobility).
• Golden Cricket: 39.3 pounds assembled (Golden Technologies).
• MegaMotion Carbon Cruiser: 42.4 pounds without its battery and 46.4 pounds with it; the battery alone is 4 pounds (MegaMotion specifications).

A folding chair has no smaller pieces to break the lift into, so a 40-pound folded chair is a 40-pound lift every time. Some people find one compact lift easier than four smaller ones; others find the reverse. Think about which suits your body and your helper's.

Watch the word "assembled"

Read each figure carefully. "Weight without batteries," "weight with batteries," "weight assembled" and "heaviest piece" are four different numbers. Pride's own notes on one model add that a heaviest-piece figure there includes base, seat and batteries (Pride Jazzy EVO 613 notes), which is a reminder to read the footnotes on the exact model you are looking at. If the page is unclear, ask the maker, or ask us, before you count on a number.

Be honest about the lift

Ask yourself a few questions before you choose:

1. Who will do the lifting, every time? You, a spouse, a grown child, a friend?
2. How high is the lift? A car trunk, an SUV cargo floor and a truck bed are all different heights.
3. How often? Daily errands are very different from a few trips a year.
4. Is there a place to set pieces down while you load?

Once the scooter or chair arrives, practice taking it apart, loading it and putting it back together at home, on a dry day with no time pressure, before your first real outing. Lift with your legs, and keep each piece close to your body. If one piece feels like too much, do not force it; that is useful information.

If the honest answer is that no one in the household should be lifting 30 or 40 pounds over a bumper, that is fine. It points to a different solution, such as a vehicle lift that does the lifting for you. Our vehicle lifts include models for scooters and power chairs, and we work with a team of credentialed local specialists to guarantee timely, safe, and optimal delivery and installation.

Other things to check on travel models

• Weight capacity. Travel models are often rated lower than full-size ones. Check that the model covers you with room to spare.
• Range. Smaller batteries mean shorter range. Our guide to battery range explains how to read the figure.
• Folded size. Compare the folded or disassembled size with your trunk. Measure the trunk opening as well as the floor.
• Air travel. If you plan to fly, check the battery type and size with the maker and the airline well before your trip.

Browse our mobility scooters and power wheelchairs to compare weights side by side; each product page lists the maker's figures. Questions are welcome at info@faithmobility.com.

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Sources

• Pride Mobility: The differences between scooters and wheelchairs
• Pride Mobility: Go Go Ultra X 3-Wheel specifications
• Golden Technologies: Buzzaround LT 3-Wheel
• Pride Mobility: Go Go Endurance AL+ specifications
• Pride Mobility: Revo 2.0 4-Wheel specifications
• Pride Mobility: Jazzy Carbon 27 specifications
• Feather Mobility: Feather Power Chair
• Golden Technologies: Cricket
• MegaMotion: Carbon Cruiser specifications sheet
• Pride Mobility: Jazzy EVO 613 specifications and notes