Are they no Pick ups on the scheme. I do realise they are commercial vehicles but surely they would be much more easier to get a mobility scooter in
I had look into this using one of our farm’s new Isuzu D-Max’s pick-up’s as a base vehicle.
It is a lot more difficult than first thought, particularly if needing a hoist to lift the wheelchair/scooter in/out of the vehicle.
Firstly, don’t forget all pick-ups come from new as a basic flat-bed only. You have to pay extra (at least £2k) to get a load cover (canopy) to cover the load bed as it is an accessory.
Then, add circa £600 + VAT to get the manufacturer’s power supply accessory feed into the load bed.
Then as the canopies are basically just GRP, there is no structural integrity to bolt the top mounts of a hoist to – it requires quite a bit of engineering.
Then the real difficult part – finding a hoist that would work. Basically, the arm and the balance bar of the hoist not only has to come out of the rear, but it also then needs to clear the open tailgate (so about another circa 2 feet) in order be able to lift the wheelchair/scooter up, without catching on the tailgate.
And none of the usual adaption companies produce such a wheelchair/scooter hoist with this length of reach. If they did, it’s arm would be so long, it would hit the roof when swinging the scooter into the body.
The only other way would be to mount the hoist on a custom-made retractable floor frame, that slides out over the tailgate (add on at least £1k) however you then have the problem of the hoist still needing a top secure mount in the vehicle’s body!
Even if you could design a workable system, then when loaded, a problem is that there is no side access to the space in front of the scooter via the canopy tail flap and tailgate– so it is a wasted space unless you put stuff in before loading the scooter (and have to take the scooter out before unloading).
So overall, even if Motability permitted pick-ups on the scheme (unlikely), it would be difficult and costly to adapt to carry in powered wheelchair/scooter sercurely with a hoist.