Maintaining Your Scooter

1. Regular Servicing

A yearly service lets you stay on top of a number of problems that if untended to, will exacerbate over time. These include:

• Battery condition
• Motor Condition
• Motor brushes
• Charger condition
• Steering alignment

Not only will this prolong the scooter’s lifespan, but it will make your ride feel brand new again. Build up of hair and other junk on the drive shaft of this Luggie scooter pictured below is not uncommon.

Small mechanical adjustments like in this video can also be made. Another approach is to repair faults as they occur, but this can sometimes be much more expensive as it may require replacement of the broken parts. Some mechanical failures can result in serious harm, for instance if the brakes fail. It’s one of those things where you decide how much risk you want to deal with. Regular servicing costs you a known amount and reduces your risk; the other way will often cost less, but there’s an increased risk that you could end up paying a lot more.

2. Know the terms of your warranty

Unfortunately, the manufacturer’s warranty on mobility scooters can be a bit complicated. Different parts have different durations and conditions attached to them. Thus, it pays to be familiar with them. If something does go wrong, the parts and labour may be eligible for warranty and thus free of charge.

Some parts, such as the motor, will burn out without proper servicing, and this type of fault is often not covered under warranty. The same goes for misuse of your scooter. At Scooters Australia, we try to be clear, and we’ve set out a standard warranty that covers most models.

Bear in mind at Scooters Australia we do still charge a call-out fee, so bring your scooter in to one of our workshops if you want the warranty repairs to be completely free.

3. Battery discipline

Depending on the size of your scooter, batteries can be expensive to replace. Getting them to last longer comes down to one key point: they last longer if they are stored in a charged state rather than discharged state. This means that charging them after every use will extend their life span. And if for whatever reason you’re not using your scooter so often, charge them once a week regardless.

4. Sustainable Driving

There are good ways to drive and bad ways. Bad ways include dropping recklessly off gutters or over terrain that your particular model isn’t suited for. Driving the scooter on low or flat batteries will only cause you problems and might leave you stranded. The same goes for driving on tyres that are under-inflated – that puts more strain on the motor and batteries.

Take care folks and drive safe.