Drive Medical Bobcat 4 Wheel Compact Scooter, Red

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...

**This review is for the DRIVE MEDICAL "BOBCAT 4-WHEEL SCOOTER" only.** I have noticed it appears for other medical scooters as well. I've wanted a scooter for a long time but am not 'disabled enough' for insurance to cover purchase - price was perfect on this unit. If you are tall, you may want to spend some more on a bigger scooter; I am pushing it at 5' 10", but adjusting the tiller forward more did help with knee room. Make sure you charge the battery pack for 10 hours before first use, even if it appears to have a 'full charge' you can damage the life of the batteries if you do not. Taking the unit apart involves tilting the entire scooter upright to remove a pin from the frame and folding the base to seperate. Not a big deal but in my case (only having use of one arm), I will just put the front end on the tailgate of my SUV and then just pick up the rear and roll it in. Getting back to the size of the scooter. I am almost 6 feet tall and slim... leg room is barely adequate but I do not bend that easily either. My mother is 5' 7" and it fits her perfectly. I have only driven it around the yard so far but forsee no issues at all - there seems to be more than enough power for me, although someone who weighs more may have problems in this area. This is an 'indoor/outdoor' scooter but the 'outdoor' part is very limited. I plan to use this outside at county fairs and the like, events you go to when the weather is good anyway. There is no weatherproofing at all on this unit so DO NOT use it in the rain or snow. Going from a mall to your car AFTER a rainstorm would probably be okay as long as you stay away from any puddles and try to wipe off the motor if you can. If anyone has any questions about this scooter, please feel free to ask me!

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.

poor quality, was defective too. the company i bought it from, Phillips Health Care, is EXCELLENT! really went to bat for me with return process with the Drive manufacturer, ( they wanted to send parts and have it repaired instead of me returning it) Would not hesitate to do business with Phillips Health Care again they were wonderful. Drive, on the other hand, is not a well made scooter, talking to wheelchair/scooter technicians, ( like I should have done before buying one ) I've learned Drive products have a reputation as cheaply made with frequent problems. For light use primarily indoors it would be ok maybe.

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.

Great little scooter with plenty of power , easy to transport , very long battery life , does not do well in grass bit has plenty of power for pavement to go everywhere . This is a great buy at this price ! Look no further for your scooter needs

I ordered this compact scooter because it had everything I needed based on months of research. When I received my scooter it was for a different model (the X4 instead). Am vastly disappointed in this because my main reason for ordering the compact design was that the battery could be charged without the unit. Because of a disability I can't be lugging the entire unit in and out of the house each time I need to charge the battery. This is not possible in the model they sent me... you have to have the battery in the unit in order to charge it. I will update this review once I hear back from the company and if they send me the model I actually ordered. Update: I never did receive this version of the Bobcat (which is the one I ordered) and based on research it's still the better model than the one I received. I will have to submit a review on the one I actually got since it wasn't this one and even just over a year later I'm still upset that I wasn't able to get the scooter I had ordered. To those of you who have this model I'm jealous because it is apparently discontinued.

The scooter arrived in good order. Easy unpacking, assembly and had a full battery charge. The only think about this item, is that the seat cannot be made tight enough, as with my other 3 wheeled scooter by the manufactuer. Seller isn't responible for this, the manufacture should possibly look into re-engineering the seat post; otherwise, i recommend this item to any who need this device.