Drive Medical Bobcat 4 Wheel Compact Scooter, Red

I like my scooter. I would give it five stars except for the hard tires and no springs which makes jerks and loud noises on every crack in the sidewalk. I drive it in the asphalt street when practical and have added reflective stripes front and rear, a bicycle bell, an arm rest cane holder and a tall pole with orange flag on the rear. You are told to not drive on gravel (tire wear) and I suspect the tires would have traction problems in grass although I have not tried that yet. Assembly was easy and intuitive. For travel in your car or SUV you break it down into four assemblies: 1) battery box with two 12 volt batteries 2) the seat 3) the front half of the chassis 4) the back half of the chassis. The rear has convenient legs to allow you the lift the chassis up on its rear for easy separation of the two chassis assemblies. The batteries were completely discharged when received. It took about 18 hours of charging to get the orange LED on the charger to turn green to indicate a full charge. Read the instructions people and do not base your charging on any time estimates. I recharge after every use and once per week since last charge. My first ride of about 1.1 mile total took about one hour of charging to turn the LED green again. There is an on dash set of LEDs to give you a clue to the state of charge on your batteries so you will not be surprised when they are about to run out and leave you stranded somewhere. Use common sense and make sure your batteries are fully charged before starting any trip. The unit does have a parking brake but does not have a foot brake. The motor is supposed to slow you when you remove power. It works on the flat. I have not tried this on a steep hill yet.Supplemental info: Today after a few days of rain totaling 3.3", with the ground soft and the damp lawn grass 5" tall, I rode my scooter with my 209 lb. gross weight around on the grass with no problems either on the level or in and out of a drainage basin with slopes probably steeper than most handicap ramps. The brakes worked fine on both up and down slopes. The motor of course must work harder to push me around on the grassy slopes but the forward speed was only slightly slower than on my paved driveway. One little nice feature, no one has mentioned, is a convenient steering lock to be used when the chassis assemblies are taken apart to keep the front wheels and handle bar from flopping around during handling. The design of this product seems to be well thought out. I am sorry to hear so many complain about the battery. These scooters are made in Asia. By the time it arrives at the end user's domain it may have been discharging for months and the plates of the lead acid batteries are badly sulfidated. It takes time and probably several charge/discharge cycles to restore (reformat) the plates before peak performance is achievable. Be patient. Pay attention to the lights not your watch. The battery is not as fully charged as you can get it at the moment until the light on the charger turns green. After you disconnect the charger and turn on the key of the scooter the dash panel display should show one red and three green lights. If you do not see all 1+3 = four green lights, you have more work to do.

Note - I bought directly from Amazon and the peace of mind it gave me was well worth it.Update 10/5 - Charged battery just over 15 hours (sleeping) and got up to try the scooter inside. Fast! Too fast for my small home. Can't wait to try it later today at the mall. Making special trip for fun and ride testing.My new name is zippy. One fast scooter. Attracted a lot of positive attention at the mall. First time I was able to go to the mall and do what I wanted in more than a year. I got two hours plus before the battery went to yellow, and went all over and back three times around the inside mall. I wanted to try it on the outside pavement but couldn't chance a dead battery since I don't walk well. I was tired and ready to go home, anyway. Still juice on the battery, but it's only on yellow. Not enough time spent on it to know just how far I can go. Even with what I was able to do today I am EXTREMELY pleased.The entire scooter fits easily, with room to spare, in the trunk of a Honda Civic Coupe. I had a harder time figuring out how to lift sections into the car, than I did fitting it in. Reassembly and re-disassembly was flawless. For the sake of the vinyl I have the seat sitting in my passenger seat, but I could easily get it in the trunk, too. Extremely happy customer. As for the battery, I am already looking for a second set so that I don't have to go home when the going gets fun. :)A couple of "assembly" notes that may not apply to you, but were important for me.1. Battery comes with a sticker that says connect battery before charging." Opened the battery box (6 long screws) only to find everything connected. Time wasted.2. Couldn't get my wheels to turn either direction. Last night saw a red handle in front of the tiller base on the front shroud. Couldn't find any reference to what it does, but that red handle locks and unlocks the steering. Up or down movement, depending.3. IMO, the manual is useless to answer questions like these. I didn't find anything about either 1. or 2. in it, and figured out other things (not shown), as well.4. It appears that a lot of the promotional material and the manual need serious upgrades. Inaccurate images, descriptions, etc. Minor, but a nuisance.Altogether, the scooter seems sturdy and capable. Needles to say, I am excited to get out and about with it, now that I actually can. Later I will report on putting into trunk, etc. for those that won't be using a lift. I am doing 100% of this myself with no help, other than my wonderful UPS guy getting the carton onto my porch.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Just received this  Drive Medical Bobcat 4 Wheel Compact Scooter, Red  and I am in tears with joy! This will fill a long overdue need. I am handling the unpacking and initial assembly by myself. Getting it out of the carton was a trial, but that's my issue. It was packaged extremely well, with lots of styrofoam and good, thick cardboard.Initial impressions are good with two exceptions.1. Tires - I know I will be replacing the tires over time due to gravel drive. Virtually no tread to speak of. That said, I will mostly use it away from home.2. Hate the basket on the front. It is not the one shown here, but rather the one shown on the Drive Medical website. Black and plastic-icky. Yuck. I may leave it off or find another.On the plus side, instead of gray, the seat frame is black and looks much nicer than the photo shown.As I finish things up, charge my battery and test the scooter tomorrow, I will post updates. So far I'm glad I took a chance. Five stars to start, let's see where we end up. :)Okay, fully assembled. Since it comes almost assembled it was pretty easy to finish up. On further inspection the basket has a handle and is like picking up a shopping basket if you want to remove it. I will leave it on for now.Tip - when you attach your seat to the mounting post, make sure to fully "seat" one pole in to the other. If you don't have it nested in the grooved part before you tighten the knob your seat will move around, but not up and down. If you wiggle your seat until it settles into the small valley on the silver pole you'll have no problem with it moving around. Appears well built.Had an SSM (semi-senior moment) when I picked up the folded seat wrong and pinched myself. Watch your fingers. ;) Easy to do when adjusting the tiller, too.All-in-all, hardest part of assembly was getting it out of the box. Will be testing and disassembling tomorrow. Until then...

so my biggest problem is it claims to hold up to 300lbs, but when you get the manual it is only 265 lbs. :( Please be honest in telling because I probably would have gone for a more heavy duty model.

First off the shipping on this item was super fast. I ordered it, and within 3 days had it.Plus free shipping.I bought this for my 80 year old Mother, who is having getting around issueswith her legs. She lives in a trailor, and I needed something compact to get through the hallwayand doorways, this it great. It is great to get around corners and steering is super easy.Snapped together 123 just like that. I like the brake feature, that once you let go of the gobuttom, it automactly slows you down. I really think she is going to get lots of use from herBobcat. Also the price compared to others and other websites, was much better.

Great scooter for the price, Arrived quickly in a very heavy box. Directions for assembly were all but non-existent. Lack of instructions lead to my assembling it wrong and caused a minor accident which damaged the seat assembly. Only a minor injury. No contact info in the box for the seller but I finally got it repaired. Once properly repaired it is working great for my wife.

I normally do not write reviews; I do take reviews into consideration when making purchases. I am very disappointed in this scooter; have had it 7 months and used 1 time. We purchased this scooter so I would be able to leave the house. First and only time I used this was to get around the grocery store. The battery lasted about 2 hours and I was stranded. Husband had to leave work to come get me. To nervous to use again. It does not feel very durable. Wish I could return it.