I am somewhat of a dilemma on deciding in regards to my new power chair late this year. I am currently in my third Invacare power chair rearwheel drive with gearless brushless motors. Living in northern Indiana with the wildest weather extremes and will not take a little snow caused me to stay home unless it's to deep. My last chair before this one electronics seem to be bulletproof, accepting bone jarring miles of travel sometimes over 10 miles in a single day! Six months in the ownership I started experiencing mysterious electronic problems which manufacture still hasn't figured out in the last four years.the chair would just stall and had to be manually turned off and turned back on by somebody else other than myself. After countless calls to my service center and the manufacturer resulting in no definitive answers! This situation truly got scary one time while crossing some railroad tracks and it stalled out just about the time the crossing arms were coming down. Looking over my shoulder with a westbound train only blocks away, heaven help me there was a state trooper who was just behind me to get me rolling again! Every piece of electronic box or parts have been replaced more than one time without solving the problem. After changing my service center they were able to wire in a non-Invacare reset switch so I can power my chair on an off without any assistance. I am 3/4c level injury and extremely active outside of my four walls. I volunteer at an elementary school five days a week and have a paying job at target on Saturdays. So having a dependable and reliable chair is absolutely key to my lifestyle. I have lost count on how many days that I have spent in bed because of this hunk of junk chair and will never own another Invacare chair again. Having the combination of long-distance travel and excessive amount of torque when necessary to climb over unknown obstacles. Potholes in this community are everybody's springtime favorite, besides those old famous cobblestone road that still exist out there. I have a sip and puff control, with the tilt system that seems to be a good combination for my 6 foot 175 pound body. Right now I'm going through another redesign on my leg rest still not strong enough to resist all of those things I seem to be bouncing off. Having about 10 hours or so up in my chair on a daily basis helps to keep me healthy both mentally and physically. Yes I've had issues with breakdown a time or two but that's just part of being disabled. Even with my worse cases of pneumonia getting up in the chair helped to speed up my recovery time. I don't mind taking extra medication to help out fighting against those sickly little bugs and absolutely swear by taking zinc once a day. Haven't a single day of school because of and think that says something? Sorry this post is so long but just been watching for the last few days of everybody's concerns and issues. Take care my dear friends
