Recommendations for car with wheelchair

mstubbs
mstubbs Online Community Member Posts: 2 Listener

Can anyone recommend a new car suitable to carry folded down wheelchair ? Was thinking ford tourneo or honda accord both seem quite roomy. It needs to be fairly easy to park to cope with on street parki ng. Thanks!

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  • Mary_Scope
    Mary_Scope Posts: 3,238 Scope Online Community Children and Family Specialists

    Hi @mstubbs and a warm welcome to the community from me!

    I can't recommend anything personally but I have come across this website that may be helpful about recommended cars for carrying an unfolded wheelchair in the boot.

    We do have lots of members here on the community so hopefully anybody who will be able to relate and recommend will see this post and share their recommendations and advice soon😊

  • OverlyAnxious
    OverlyAnxious Online Community Member Posts: 5,475 Championing

    Hi,

    The Ford Tourneo is a large van. I'm not sure that's the model you were thinking of for a folded wheelchair?

    There have been a lot of problems with Fords 2.0 EcoBlue diesel engine though, so I would avoid that if you can.

    The Honda should be much more reliable, but that is a much smaller saloon vehicle. I'm not sure how easy it would be to get a folded wheelchair into one of those.

  • Bydand
    Bydand Online Community Member Posts: 256 Empowering
    edited December 26

    Hi,

    Having recently helped a disabled friend shop around for a car, i can highly recommend a Honda Jazz Crosstar. Key points of this car are….slightly higher ride height so you step into as opposed to down into it, Hondas magic rear seats with both fold flat and easily fold up the way, leaving a generous sized space behind front seats for anything tall, clumsy or a wheelchair, lots of visibility all round to help with parking. It is a hybrid engine but you dont need to plug into anything. Sometimes the car will run on battery power alone, sometimes on battery and engine and other times just with the engine.

    My friend loves hers, has all the room she could ask for, very easy to drive and park, is very well equipped , has Honda reliabilty which they are famous for and in this day and age is very very economical. My friend who does a combination of slow city driving and b road 60 mph driving is averaging 58 mpg…..higher with just city or village driving.

    It may look like a small car but this is in dimensions only. The car has so much space , that as an able bodied man, although be it with an illness, I would certainly consider it for my next car.

    I would encourage you too search for online reviews of both the jazz and jazz crosstar. Only real difference is in the small ride height, but my friend said the crosstar was easier to get in and out of and having watched her i would agree.

    Hope this helps a little and may be worth looking into.

    Any questions give me a shout as i did lots of reviews on various cars before directing her into the Hondas direction.

    Edit……I should have also made mention of the doors which all open very wide providing lots of room to manoeuvre things about, especially the back doors, giving great access for loading and unloading

  • mstubbs
    mstubbs Online Community Member Posts: 2 Listener

    Fantastic thank you!

  • Bydand
    Bydand Online Community Member Posts: 256 Empowering

    no worries. The good thing about the Jazz other than what I have mentioned is that with the rear seats folded up and the space used for a wheelchair it leaves you with the boot free for shopping, dog, luggage, any hobby pursuits etc. so you are not eating into the boot space by having to put a wheelchair into the boot

    Good luck with you’re search and please let everyone here know if you yourself manage to narrow you’re search down to a certain car. I am sure others here perhaps looking for a car would be interested in what you have found, and real life examples can only be beneficial to others.