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PegMeerkatz · 11-02-2010, 10:16 PM

I have trouble posting photos in the threads but I will put photos in a new photo album on my page so you can see my Quantum 600 Wheelchair. Right now the pictures are all I have to remember what it looks like.

I have Medicare & Medicaid; Medicare paid for the chair which had a lot of the bells & whistles. I received it in mid-December. Now some people might get annoyed when I relay my story thinking there is something wrong with ME that I ALWAYS have problems but fact of the matter is my life has ALWAYS operated according to MURPHY'S LAW.

I got the chair at the end of January 2010. Went thru the Scooter Store. I was supposed to have the chair in time to go out for my birthday @ the end of November didn't happen. Before I got the chair I asked if the chair would work with my wheelchair lift. I had the lift installed when I bought my van almost 6 years ago & it had been plagued with problems over the years. I was assured the chair WOULD work with my lift & then waited & waited for delivery.

The chair came & I was THRILLED. It did many things though not everything I had been told that it would do. I THOUGHT I finally found my freedom; I planned mall trips & started planning all the things I was going to do in the summer; things that the last couple years I COULD NOT do because it required too much walking.

First I faced problems with accessibility @ my condo wound up having to use a door far from my condo then within a week the lift was acting up again. Then I got stuck @ my neurologists office I COULD NOT get the chair back into my van after using it. My friends husband got the lift in the van manually & I went home. NO ONE WANTED TO TELL ME WHO TO GO TO FOR ASSISTANCE. The original installer of the lift did a really bad job then wanted to charge me more than the cost of the lift to repair it though it never worked properly. Finally I spoke to Pride since it was a Pride lift. But when they asked me for the serial number of the lift I could not find it where they said it should be. I did finally find a serial number & I Pride said it WAS NOT one of their serial numbers. Long story short I was told it was a Pride lift but it also has after market unauthorized parts. For about a week I took buses & trains (using the wheelchair) around Long Island but that was a hassle. Then I decided to try the lift again. I went to a local strip mall of stores. I DID NOT have a problem getting the chair in at home or out at the stores but when I was ready to go home THE LIFT WOULD NOT WORK. People tried to help me I called various places NO ONE WOULD HELP ME & NOTHING WOULD MAKE THE LIFT WORK. I finally locked up the van & took my purchases & my Service Dog & drove the wheelchair MORE THAN 5 MILES TO MY CONDO (someone picked up my van later).

For the next month I was back to public transportation. This DID allow me more freedom in terms of where I went but it was harder to get there. I was finally directed to another mobility dealer. While every mobility dealer I spoke to REFUSED to get involved this one agreed to try to help.

I brought the van & wheelchair to him. He went crazy when he saw the lift in operation. He told me to take the chair home take it off the lift & DO NOT USE THE LIFT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. There was something called an "actuary" that was BENT. He said it was only a matter of time; days, weeks he could not say that the "actuary" was going to SNAP & whoever was putting the chair in or out of the van at the time would get seriously hurt.

At the time the only solution I was offered was REPLACE THE VAN & GET ONE WITH THE RIGHT LIFT. They DID NOT recommend the type of lift I had with the type of chair that I had. I was FURIOUS because a Scooter Store tech who allegedly installed lifts looked at my lift & ASSURED ME IT WOULD WORK. The mobility dealer said that my wheelchair exceeded the weight limits for the lift & because it was improperly installed & not in good shape to begin with it bent the actuary. Of course no one wanted to take responsibility for the calamity of errors.

I ONLY used public transporation as a last resort & limited my life to going to stores that loan scooters to customers or just making quick trips to stores for 1 or 2 things & NO MALLS because I CANNOT WALK AROUND; ALL of my summer plans were CANCELLED & I worked on becoming the best couch potato I could. The ONLY TIME I really used the chair was to take the dog for long "walks" in the neighborhood; without a way to transport it where could I go?

This is how things remained I COULD NOT afford a new van & the mobility dealer did not feel it was worth fixing the lift. My condo has been here since BEFORE WORLD WAR II & is very old in many ways. One thing we had a problem with was that the sockets were loose so if you plugged things in very often they fell out (I have since had all the sockets repaired). One morning about 2 am my mom was awakened by a loud shrill beeping. She determined it was coming from the wheelchair. The plug for the charger came out of the wall & the batteries were dangerously low. In order to stop the beeping I disconnected the batteries from the chair. After that the chair never took a full charge then it would not takee a charge at all - THE 6 MONTH OLD WHEELCHAIR WAS DEAD.

Now I could not use the chair at all UNLESS I bought new batteries. Since I could not use the lift I WAS NOT in a hurry to buy batteries. However, my room has yet to be fully renovated even though I moved here 10 months ago as a result the wheelchair would not fit in my room & was in mom's very small dining room. After yet another argument with her over "What are you going to do with the chair?" I called the mobility dealer that looked at the lift & I told him to come get the chair I did not care what he did with it just get it out here.

Since June the chair has been at the mobility dealer while he continued to search for a repair for the lift. Last week he said he had figured out what to do though he could not guarantee it was a PERMANENT SOLUTION. He sent me an estimate for OVER $1,200. There was NO WAY I could pay this & was it really worth it for what might be a temporary fix? After contacting the dealer & telling him to just remove the broken lift & help me sell the chair I would just be a couch potato he found someone to pay for the repair of the lift. That is where we are now, he is trying to get the repair parts & will repair the lift then I just need to buy new batteries for the wheelchair.

Back to the original posters questions I DID have a scooter but if I used it all day like for a mall trip or a day out with friends I would get fatigued & start tipping to one side & sliding down & almost out of the chair. When my scooter died of old age I was reevaluated & told a scooter WAS NOT a good option for me.

Right now I use a rollator walker; the only problem with that is I am better @ falling than walking. I look like an abused child from all the bruises. When I do go into a store to get something & they don't have scooter I walk the parimeter of the aisle so I can grab the shelves for support if need be. My Service Dog will "remind me" to get closer to the shelves if I inadvertantly venture out to the middle of an aisle. She crosses in front of me so I have no choice but to go where she says.

I think overall the Quantum 600 is a great chair just be careful who you buy it from. Not every seller is out for your best interest & some (like the rep I had @ the Scooter Store) will sell you on all kinds of features of the chair to get you to agree & then when it is delivered it does not do everything promised & the features I was mislead on can only be installed before the chair is assembled.

Take a look at the pictures in my album & you will see it is a pretty cool looking chair.