Like the Slide Away? If it's anything like mine you probably don't want one.

 

If you use a manual chair, the Bruan Vangater is an option, it is what I have that is 21 years old, mine being the original from the company that designed it, screw drive, the platform folds clearing the doorway when not in use. Mine would make a salesman have a stroke now tho, the roll stop on the end is missing pieces, no longer working, wore out, but thats it.

 

That's good to hear. Our daughter is only 6, and she's only needed a lift since she got her power wheelchair just under two years ago. So we're relatively new to this, and the current lift really gives us a sour opinion of Ricon in general.

Since starting this thread I ended up divorced, and we split costs on the van because we consider it as belonging to our daughter. Karri wants to trade for a converted minivan, which is something we are looking into closely. I'm inclined to see how we like the new lift before jumping ship like that, especially after how well our dealer has treated us with all of this. We'll see.

 

Mini vans are extremely close to the ground and after conversion they will drag on the slightest incline, just turning into a parking lot from the road will often require you coming to a stop as they will bottom out, this I know too well. The friend with the clear view Ricon, that van has 400,000+ miles on it as he drove it to his wheelchair rugby matches along with his commute to work being long, it is basically the same as my commercial version but with the split platform added. The mini van is killed by having the floor dropped 12+ inches to accommodate the wheelchair, they lift the suspension a little but makes no difference because if you look closely they are a mere inches from the ground, I can't see how you've not bottomed one out.

 

Tom,PM sent

 

Yep, that's certainly true! We've probably but about 5,000 miles on their loaner minivans while ours has been in the shop. Hannah's chair is 350 lbs by itself, so she's over 400 lbs in the chair. Add to that her two brothers, and their loaner vans ride on the bump stops. We've scraped more than a few times, but the vans don't seem any the worse for wear.

Part of that is the way they do their conversions. Rollx is one of the handful of manufacturers of converted minivans in the country, and they don't seem to do anything to beef up the suspension. They all ride terribly when we put Hannah in, and therefore we aren't interested in owning one of them. After the last time it was repaired, I went straight to a Braun dealer and set up a test drive of one of theirs. The difference was like night and day, they use a load leveling rear suspension that seems to be able to handle the weight of a power wheelchair. This is the direction we would go if we decide to downsize.

 

Yeah, many Braun use air bags, my friend got one cheap, bags need replaced, leaks due to being dry rotten from age, he daily drives the other Braun, I've never heard of Rollx.

 

Definitely not as big as VMI or Braun. Instead of a dealer network they ship vehicles directly to customers from their production facility outside of Minneapolis.

https://www.rollxvans.com/?gclid=Cj0...4aAkqIEALw_wcB

They're good people who seem to really care, but not the level of quality that the big nationwide companies like Braun seem to have.

 

I wish I had seen this thread back in 2016... I have some second hand experience with lift-equipped vans. A good friend from high school had one in the early 90's. His was an E-150, standard-roof with a side lift, also modified for him to drive it. He sold it after he wasn't able to drive any his family replaced it with a dropped floor minivan.

In the Philadelphia area, he discovered that even a std-roof E-150 (shorter height than heavier 250 and 350 vans) still was too tall to fit into most parking garages.

The side lift essentially took up all of the middle of the van. It also limited the rear-ward travel of the front passenger seat. If he was driving it was a 4-person vehicle; him driving, plus front passenger and two passengers way back on the rear bench. If he was locked into the middle position and the OE driver's seat was installed, it could carry 5 total.

His van was a V6 and he wished they had sprung for the V8 as the V6 had to work so hard with the weight there was no MPG savings. Like the OP, he had to buy the van and the conversion was covered by a State disability program.

As I searched for my van, I saw a lot of handicap conversions for sale.

 

My friend, when he was working, he kept buying used wheelchair vans, the 300 I6 was his favorite due to his daily driver was a 96 I6 with C6 transmission and reached 400,000 miles without a rebuild of anything, it got the same mileage as his friends 2001 E150 hightop with 5.4 on a trip.

We have no state help with purchase here, dad bought my stuff used and had it installed in a van he found for me, it made it a year before I replaced it with a 99 E350 in 2002, having the equipment transferred to it, wish I had gotten a newer lift tho. The Bruan Vangater doesn't affect the passenger seat like the hydraulic lift due to there being the lift arm is on one side, not both, but it is not as durable or capable of heavy lifting either.
A rear lift is not as hard on the suspension due to the rear having the more durable leaf springs, takes longer before they break down, you will find most converted vans with moderate use all lean to the passenger side.

 

Kind of curious how he liked the minivan? Which company did the conversion?

We put a lot of thought into our conversion. The parking garages around the Minneapolis-St. Paul area we need access to are 7' tall, and the Transit is 6'11" in short-roof configuration. We purchased a bone-stock 12-passenger long wheelbase model and had the second-row seats removed, while leaving the third and fourth factory seats intact. Total seating capacity is 9, plus Hannah in her wheelchair immediately behind the front seats, and nearly 4' of empty floor space behind the third row.

This thing is beyond impressive in the powertrain department. The base V6 is a very modern 3.7L DOHC V6 mated to a 6-speed auto, and it has no trouble at all moving this van around. We also use it to tow our 3,500-lb boat, at which it seems to have no issue. In the summer we see as high as 18-19 MPG on highway trips, with our average being around 15 or so. I really can't say enough about this powertrain, for the base option it's fantastic.

I've had two 3.5L EcoBoost-powered trucks and they were fantastic, unfortunately the EcoBoost engine is a harder thing to find in the used van market. I would have happily spent a bit more for it, but they were just too hard to find.

 

I'd think I found a viable lift. But they want $700 for it.

https://stlouis.craigslist.org/pts/d...466566612.html

 

That seems pretty steep for a 20-year-old lift.

Are you interested in the SlideAway they're ripping out of my Transit? I have no idea what they plan on doing with it, but I can ask for ya.

I think that thing is trouble, though...4 hydraulic leaks in a year-and-a-half. We're very happy it's being replaced.

 

Don't give up on Ricon, we have an S2000 in a 1993 E150 that is the original put in when the van was new. It has had $1500 in maint (hydraulic cylinders & switches) and works perfectly.

 

Tom -

I'm not entirely sure. His family typically bought Fords, so it might have been whatever minivan Ford was making at the time. Sadly, my friend passed away back in 2009 (his condition was degenerative, so we all subconsciously knew he would pass young) and the van is long gone.

Fortunately, there are more van options and better technology now than back in the early 90's. The base E-series V6 was (IIRC) the 4.2L "Essex" engine. I don't know much about it other than he felt it lacked power and didn't give the better fuel economy he was hoping for. At the time he was commuting to graduate school in Philly.