good scooter, terrible reliablility

2 out of 5 stars

I bought a brand new pride apex rapid, and owned it for about 3 years. As a scooter it was ok, manouverable, I could get it on and off TFL busses and on trains, in most shops and public buildings, cinemas etc. As it comes apart if is easy to fit into even tiny cars, even a nissan micra if needed, although the pieces are heavy so I had to get someone else to do that for me.

Now the BAD part - it began getting issues of going slow, losing charge quickly, losing range etc. It was cared for exactly as required in the handbook and kept in excellent condition, and the service agent confirmed I had done nothing wrong, but the e-brake had failed. His comment was "oh, one of these again, I'm ALWAYS replacing the e-brakes on these ones".

In the time I had it, and the many service agents who had to come to work on it's repeated faults, all of them had comments about how often they need to repair items on the pride apex rapids and other pride variants. Reliability is obviously a weak point not just for mine.

I lost count of exactly how many issues it had, I may have forgotten some, but it had at least 3 new e-brakes, 2 new transaxles, a new motor, new controller, 2 sets of new batteries (damaged by the other faulty parts), new battery contacts on the battery pack and the chassis, and a new battery box. All this in UNDER 3 years!

The scooter spent more time off the road than on it, was unreliable and I didn't dare try to go far in case I got stranded, it made my life hell with unreliability. I ended up contacting Pride UK and asked them to take it back to their own workshop for a strip down and investigation to find WHY things kept going wrong on it, they brushed me off. I persisted by taking my complaint to their headquarters in the USA, who were appalled at the awful customer service I had recieved, and ordered Pride UK to take ownership of the problem. (Although they didn't bother giving me a courtesy scooter during all the times I had to be without it, meaning I missed out on several important functions, tradeshows and other industry events over those 3 years).

After being read the riot act by Pride USA, Pride UK finally took the scooter back to their own workshop, and replaced EVERYTHING. After this it did work perfectly and regained full range etc, but I had completely lost trust in pride products and customer service by this point and just wanted rid of it. My extended warranty was coming to an end and rather than renew it, I decided to sell the scooter and upgrade to a more reliable mobility device.

Versitle litte Mobility Scooter

4.7 out of 5 stars

I’ve had this Scooter quite a while now. It’s robust, well built and has suspension, which help but is not “spongee”.

Great for shopping, not as manoverable as a three wheel scooter, but it never feels unsafe.

The speed control is simple; you just turn a knob on the steering capstan and it’s has a good level of speed control.

I haven’t run it from a full charge to flat, however it does have upto a weeks use before I’ve needed to charge it for local journeys.

It does brake into four parts with the heaviest being the motor. I cannot, personally, load it into a car due to my own disability.

I would say this is a great machine, as long as you’ve got someone to load/unload it to/from a vehicle to go any greater distance.