Mobility Scooter Maintenance Tips from the Experts

Before reading this blog post, we feel it’s important to mention that we have tons of repair videos and troubleshooting tutorials on our Youtube channel. Click here to access our repair playlist on Youtube. You can also watch the video below for general troubleshooting tips.

Having a checklist for mobility scooter maintenance will allow you to always know what is due to your mobility scooter (or power wheelchair). Unlike cars, trucks, or SUVs, there are no lights that will appear to remind you of the service. Many cars these days will tell you Oil Change Soon or something similar when an oil change is needed for instance. With mobility scooters, preventive maintenance will ensure longevity.

Each manufacturer such as Pride Mobility has different recommendations. However, many mobility scooter maintenance tips are universal. For instance, it is well agreed upon that every couple of years you should replace your battery. A majority of mobility scooters utilize lead-acid batteries which are known to not hold a charge as well as time goes on. Rather than waiting one day and realizing the battery no longer functions, being proactive is the better approach.

In this blog post, we will cover 5 tips for keeping your mobility scooter and/or power wheelchair in excellent working condition.

1. Keep Your Batteries in Good Health

As a technician for mobility products, I will confidently tell you that over 90% of my tech repair tasks were solved by simply changing the batteries on the unit that was brought in for servicing. Most mobility scooters and power wheelchairs work on a 24-volt system which requires two, Lead Acid, 12-volt batteries. Some of the lightweight mobility scooters and folding electric wheelchairs are designed to work with Lithium batteries which last much longer than Lead Acid batteries and require less maintenance.

If you own a Go-Go scooter or a Jazzy Wheelchair, chances are the unit works off of 24 volts. We recommend watching the video below which will demonstrate the process for checking the health of your batteries on your scooter or power chair.

Best Practice: The best thing you can do to ensure your batteries get the longest life span is to never let your battery meter reach the red zone. It’s best to charge your batteries after using your mobility device regardless of how long you used it. In other words, keep your batteries fully charged as often as possible. If you plan to travel and leave the unit in storage, make sure the unit is not going

What to Avoid: The reason is that batteries lose their ability to retain a charge when you let the batteries dry up. Technically, when the battery power drains, the battery cells are drying up and when they get to dry, they aren’t able to retain charge for too long. The quickest way to reduce the life of your batteries is to drive the unit until the batteries completely die. You should never let you

2. Keep Your Product Clean

It might sound like an obvious tip, but you’d be surprised at how many scooters we received that are covered in mud, dirt, grass, and other forms of debris. By keeping your mobility scooter, power chair clean, you’ll ensure that there are no foreign objects getting caught in places that they don’t belong. I’ve seen many mobility devices with grime and dirt build-up in the wheel-well and transaxle that over time cause stress to the motor because it’s not operating freely the way it’s designed to. We recommend using rubbing alcohol mixed with water on a slightly damp microfiber cloth. When you have your cloth slightly damp with the alcohol/water mix you can carefully wipe down the scooter surfaces while avoiding any spots that could lead to water entering the mechanical components or electrical components.

Another benefit of keeping your unit clean is that it will stay in a new condition if you plan to resell later for an upgrade. We have a platform known as Buysellwheelchairs.com, you can list your used mobility device for sale and it will be listed on a website that gets thousands of visitors looking for used mobility products. Our customers that inquire about used items are referred to Buysellwheelchairs.com to find them, our manufacturing partners are also referring people that inquire about used products to Buysellwheelchairs.com as well.

3. Avoid Stress on The Motor

Our third tip for getting the most out of your mobility device is to avoid putting unnecessary stress on the motor by any means. The most common way to stress out a motor is to add more weight to the unit than what the unit is rated for. Every mobility scooter and power wheelchair has a “weight capacity” rating that you can find on our website specification section for each product. It’s important to know the weight capacity rating of your device so that you don’t stress the motor. If you plan to carry groceries or luggage with you, remember to pay close attention to the added weight so that you don’t exceed the manufacturer’s weight capacity.

Another common occurrence when it comes to stressing out a mobility scooter or wheelchair’s motor is related to the incline rating. For example, if you take your scooter up a driveway with an incline or a sidewalk with a slope, you’re actually making your motor work harder than it would when operating on a flat surface. If you don’t pay attention to the manufacturer’s incline rating (aka grade climbable) then you could risk stressing out your motor by taking rides on inclines that are too steep for your device’s motor.

4. Avoid Moisture & Water

There are very few units that are designed to cope with rain or water in general. Going over puddles, wet grass, or other wet terrains is not advised. Once water gets in your transaxle and wheel-well, its bad news. Mobility scooter and electric wheelchairs are generally not designed to come in contact with water or moisture whatsoever. If you want to get the most out of your mobility device, stay away from any type of water, moisture, or high levels of humidity to avoid have your electrical components or transaxle rust out.

NOTE: Some models like the Afiscooter S or Afikim Afiscooter C scooter are rated to ride through small puddles but not meant to be ridden in the rain without a rain canopy cover.

5. Read Your User Manual Thoroughly

User Manuals are grossly underappreciated by most consumers, including me at times. When you take the time to read the user manual for your product, you could end up finding tips that are specific to your model. Without reading the user manual of your product, you might end up damaging your product or reducing the life expectancy of your components due to improper use. It is for that reason, that we strongly recommend reading your user manual in it’s entirety. User manuals for each product can be found on our website, simply navigate to the product page and look for the section that says “User Manuals” in the description field as shown in the video demonstration below.

Not all user manuals are the same. If you purchase a foreign mobility scooter for a very low price, you might get a user manual that is not in English. If you buy something made by a reputable US-based company like Pride Mobility, Drive Medical, Golden Technologies, Afikim, Merits USA, etc, then you will likely get a user manual with a troubleshooting section. Many user manuals will include information to help you diagnose your scooter if you hear beeps or flashing lights in a certain sequence. Many of the Pride Mobility Scooters have a beep code reference sheet included in the user manual that will help you diagnose your scooter with ease. The most common beep code error is when you disengage the automatic brakes on your scooter or power wheelchair and then try to operate the unit. You will hear 5 beeps when your automatic brakes are not engaged and your scooter or power wheelchair won’t move. This is because all power wheelchairs and mobility scooters are required to have automatic brakes for safety, they will not operate with the automatic brakes engaged. If you need manually move your device when the battery is no