We Need Your Help! What's Your Experience With Motability?🚗

I got my first Motabliity car last year. Lovely car! However, the Volvo team where I got the car hasn’t been overly helpful. I ordered the car initially in green in March 2024, I ended up collecting a blue car, same model in July 2024.

Despite being told, I’d be able to collect sooner than this. The colour change didn’t bother me but the team weren’t great with the handling of it all. I ended up contacting the owner of the garage who managed to tell me what was going on which was good.

This being said, when I have called with concerns or questions about the car - I have been advised to call out RAC or if that doesn’t work to drive 30+ miles to said dealership so they can assess the car. However, if anything did need to be done to the car, I’d have to rebook and they would contact Motablity. It’s all a bit confusing for a first time Motablity user but thankfully, I haven’t needed any other assistance since.

I always assumed that a Motability dealer would collect the car for servicing free of charge and return it afterwards. But not according to my local Lexus dealer, who told me "no such agreement has been made with motability" - even though I could not drive the 50 miles to the dealership.

Hence no Lexus LBX will be seen at my house.

But just because there is abuse, it's not a reason to tar all Motability users with the same brush and punish them all.

Perhaps if so many are abusing the criteria (personally, I've not met a single Motability user who didn't need their vehicle), it's a reason for the people at Motability to be told they need to rethink which type of disabilities should be eligible for the scheme and be more careful how criteria are applied. Maybe even reduce the number of higher end cars that are available - but don't make it impossible for those in genuine need to access the cars and other mobility aids they need to retain a modicum of independence.

@Trevor_PIP

I have to say, you seem to have met an awful lot of people who seem to have been able to pull the wool over the people at Motabilitys eyes (I can't say I'm aware of meeting a single person with a motability car who didn't need it), but that abuse sounds like a reason to tighten up the eligibility criteria and for the people at Motability to be more careful how they apply the criteria. And maybe, reduce the number of high-end vehicles that are available on the scheme. Just because some people are abusing the system, isn't a reason to demonise everyone using the scheme, nor is it a reason to make it impossible for some people, who rely on motability for their cars and other mobility aids to retain a modicum of independence.

@Trevor_PIP

Also as a current PIP claimant, who, like you, worked for many years - and, in fact, was in full-time work when I was first awarded the mobility component of PIP, I have to say that there being abuse of the Motability scheme is not a reason to penalise every single, legitimate user of the scheme. In fact, I would say that the fact that some people are abusing the scheme should be a reason to tighten up the criteria, apply the criteria more carefully, perhaps reduce the number of high-end cars available. But not use it as an excuse to further demonise people with disabilities and consider ways of making the scheme too expensive for some to use, and making it harder for such people to retain even a modicum of independence.

I'm also a non-user of the scheme - although I have bought a couple of brand-new cars, and kept them for years more than the 3 years currently available on the scheme. In fact, that would be a way of reducing the cost of the scheme - a lot of people don't need a new car every 3 years; especially given the fact that cars these days are far more reliable and much less likely to rust out in a few years. One every 4 or 5 years would be fine. (My first Honda Jazz is still going strong, 18 years after I first bought it, although I wouldn't expect anyone to keep a motability car on the road that long.)

I don't know what I was doing wrong, but I typed 3 replies to @Trevor_PIP and each of them vanished without a trace.

There's more to the application than just answering questions - there's also required medical evidence - how do these people get round this ?

My apologies, Trevor - I didn't mean to bombard you with repeat posts. It's just that all 3 of them vanished into the ether and I thought they just hadn't posted. And having an impaired memory means I couldn't remember exactly what I'd written, which is why they're all a bit different.

About the numbers on PIP doubling, isn’t a lot of that down to the transfer of people already on DLA to PIP?

PIP is not easy to get, and not a free-for-all. It has however been very negatively - and often inaccurately - reported by the right wing media and politicians.