Useful Mobility Scooter & Powerchair Battery Information & Tips

Battery buyers guide

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If you are thinking of buying batteries on line there are a couple of things that you should consider before you do

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Do you need batteries?

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Be sure that the batteries are faulty before replacing them. You can’t tell the condition of a battery with just a multi meter, an AGM battery requires a slow discharge test. Our battery tests are only £10 for a pair of batteries and we are happy to refund this cost if new batteries are purchased from us. 

We would recommend this before purchasing any new batteries.

 

Avoid cheap mobility batteries

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You wouldn’t buy a rubber hammer to hammer nails just because it was £1 cheaper than a metal one would you? Rubber hammers have their uses but as you would expect, given the wrong job they don’t last long. Well AGM batteries are just the same, leisure batteries (makes such as Lucas or Bosch) are great, but are only designed to power things such as lights in caravans for days/weeks at a time, this means that the power is being taken very slowly and gently causing very little stress to the cell plates, this means that the cell walls can be built much thinner. This becomes a problem when they are used on mobility scooters, powered wheel chairs and stair lifts as this type of equipment will discharge the batteries within a few hours as they require much more power than a small light. If the plates aren’t heavy duty enough they will often warp or even crack causing the battery to fail prematurely.

 

Below is a great example of battery build quality differences, and cheap v good. both batteries are the same size and both are AGM

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This is a genuine mobility scooter / wheelchair AGM battery, it weighs 24.65kg as the build quality is up to the standard for the mobility industry.

This battery costs £150 from us with 12 months warranty.

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This is a cheaper AGM leasure battery as found on eBay (actually being sold as a mobility battery.....) it only weighs 20.7kg. That's nearly 4kg less material!

These cost £117 on eBay....

 

 

 

 

Check what the online returns procedure is

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• What happens if the batteries do become faulty, will they require proof of a faulty battery and if so how will you get it? Will you be responsible for paying for a battery test?

• Will they request the batteries back if so be aware that lots of companies won’t take them (Royal Mail, Parcel force, Hermes, Collect Plus etc etc...) and the ones that do are usually very expensive. 

• If you do manage to send them back are you able to be without your equipment until they get the new batteries to you?

• Also consider that you might have to go over this routine again and again as they will most likely keep failing on you.

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Unfortunately, there are companies and people out there selling automotive leisure batteries for mobility equipment that either don’t know the difference between the two or just don’t care. 

There will always be automotive batteries being sold for mobility equipment as it is can be supplied cheaper, and unfortunately there are retailers out there that will miss sell them.

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Buy in store or from a local mobility dealership (like ourselves wink, wink), and if you wish to compare prices search for key mobility battery brands such as MK, Strident and Black Box.

 

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Un suitable 'leisure' batteries are currently the cause of around half of our repair calls, and although we would love to keep having to sell you new batteries we believe that you should only have to buy them once!