How to Find the right WAV for my needs?

There are a few things in life most people will not want to compromise on. The home you live in, primarily, must feel right. Where you go on holiday, shop for groceries, and probably a few other things. The family car, for many, falls into this category too. But the question remains, “what is the best vehicle for someone in a wheelchair?”.

Essential to find the right WAV

When it comes to wheelchair-accessible vehicles, mobility, and your ability to get from A to B, this shouldn’t be a compromise either. It’s a difficult decision to buy a WAV, and it’s near impossible to find the right one quickly and easily. The best WAV for your needs is the one that feels right, not necessarily that looks alright. For the most part, most mobility cars don’t look great; they aren’t desirable. It’s the nature of the beast.

That’s why we created WAVFinder.

Whether you are seeking a Motability Scheme new or Nearly New WAV, looking to buy a new or used WAV, WAVFinder will help you to help us to help you, and there’s no charge for our advice. We know that finding a suitable WAV is very hard work indeed.

Needs for a WAV outweigh aesthetics

Your intuition can serve you right if you have tested the car out for yourselves because it isn’t usually about one person unless you are a wheelchair user driver. As we always say, if the wheelchair user isn’t happy in a WAV, the driver won’t be either and vice versa. Please see why do I need a WAV for more information.

If a wheelchair user will be anywhere but in the driver’s position, you are trying to make a unilateral decision on behalf of a committee. Remember, they could be your wife, husband, son or daughter, and your committee probably lives with you. Please check our WAV buyers guide too.

WAVFinder

We here at Southern Mobility Vehicles have developed WAVFinder. WAVFinder is how you should begin your search for the right mobility car, and it will get you closer to the right WAV for your needs fast, without endless searches and countless phone calls. WAVFinder asks a handful of simple questions that you’ll be able to answer before you leap into the confusing world of WAVs.

Then you will need help and advice. There are more than ten different variants of the Peugeot Rifter, twenty-plus variants of the Citroen Berlingo and forty-plus variants of the VW Caddy, all as WAVs. This ignores the manufacturer’s build specification, which will vary. Then there are the Mercedes, Renault, Vauxhall, Kia, and others’ conversion variants to add into the mix. It is quite literally mesmerising.

There are hundreds of internal variations, and you won’t know what the wheelchair space is like until you open it up, and until then, they all look the same. It’s baffling, and they are all the best, allegedly.

We care about what WAV you buy

Southern Mobility Vehicles know best based on our fifteen-plus years of WAV experience, so they only buy the best. Behind those 15 years of WAV experience is more than forty years of automotive experience in wholesaling, retailing, and vehicle conversions. When you contact us, you will not be led to our stock, nor will you be directed to a converter or a vehicle marque until we fully understand your needs and wants.

You will receive impartial, unbiased independent advice focused on your needs and wants. Save yourself from weeks of frustration, many phone calls and dozens of online searches and just use WAVFinder to narrow the possible options down, and we’ll do the rest.

The answers you give are your knowledge. Then you will need our understanding and expertise to fine-tune what will likely work best for you. We can’t advise you on the best WAV for your needs unless you engage with us and, ultimately, the vehicles themselves.

We will take all the time you need; you are not committed to us. There are no fees, and you are free to come and go as you please. After all, unless you get help, our experience tells us you will still be looking for the right mobility car for your needs six months or more later, and you probably need it sooner than that. You narrow down your choices effectively, and we will help you do the rest.

WAV Pros and Cons

There isn’t much to like about WAVs but what you will ultimately love is the freedom. The following few questions will get you closer than ever and lift the stress of that journey to where you want or need to go when you leave your home.

The ever-changing models, the journey towards alternative fuels, and complex conversions that make wheelchair access to modern, quickly morphing cars and vans mean that the finished product that allows wheelchair access is time-consuming and expensive. It is that lengthy, costly and risky process that brings you that freedom in the form of a wheelchair or scooter accessible vehicle

They aren’t pretty either, and it’s not exactly a field of dreams. You are looking at compromise from the word go because the vehicles you will experience you would have thought you’d have to own unconverted, let alone converted. Maybe you had no idea they existed, perhaps you did, but we know you don’t want one. That in itself makes the process complex enough.

Don’t pick up the phone until you have narrowed down the options, and when you do, call us for objective, personal advice and help, and we will take the pain away as best we can. You are a few simple questions away from the end of your search and the beginning of the freedom a WAV brings.

Informed WAV decisions

We have hundreds of happier customers because we took the time to ensure they understood what they needed to know. Never buy a WAV before you have tested it out, and never rush or be rushed. Whether you are seeking a short-term rental, Motability New or Nearly New or a WAV as an outright purchase, just call us to find the WAV that is right for you.

We don’t expect you to spend more than you want on a WAV but finding the best WAV for your needs first allows us to tailor to your budget later. If you search using traditional key factors like make, model, price, and size, these will often lead you down a dead-end that will take several weeks to find. Life is short enough, and no one needs the stress of searching for the elusive WAV you want based on factors that cannot be as significant as when you were buying the standard family car.

Acquiring a WAV can be as complex as making a sound financial investment; both can be researched but are best completed with expert help based on a good understanding of your circumstances.

A WAV is an investment

With investing, you pay for a pile of paper, and in 10 years or so, you may or may not do well. It’s hardly logical to do with our hard-earned cash, but we still do it, and past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance either. When investing in a WAV, the benefits are known before you spend your money, and you’ll reap the benefits on day one. Independence and freedom are now on the table, and the actual returns will become apparent in the happiness you will see and how can you put a value on that.

So, when looking to acquire a WAV, remember your investment is in the person who is the reason you are looking to get a WAV. Why take a risk that a WAV will work when the product and its future performance can be known quickly and easily. The risk-averse will ensure it is a suitable investment by taking expert advice, so they know that the product will work for them.

Of course, how much you invest and your attitude towards investment risk needs to be ascertained, and these are vital factors when making any large purchase or acquisition. Still, the order of establishing what you need that works is very different to searching for a standard vehicle.

Traditional car acquisition is pretty straightforward, even if you are searching for one you like the look of and know nothing about cars. You may even have seen what you want on the road, looked it up on the internet, found it new, and realised you couldn’t afford a new one, so you searched for a second-hand model. If it fits the budget, it’s a deal after a bit of haggling, but it’s not that hard.

WAV variants

Now you are entering the twilight zone of WAVs. They are hard to spot on the road, telltale signs are few and far between, and there aren’t many models that will make you drool. For the most part, you wouldn’t give any of the models converted a second look unconverted, so you are faced with finding out more about them before you even look at the possible different conversions inside.

We could line up 40 plus VW Caddys, and it may be the first time you have looked at one; now, there are 40 or more variations to see. Each one is a Pandora’s Box because you will find a different conversion, layout, and specification only when you open each one up, but they all looked the same before you opened the doors. The pricing, too, will seem illogical and confusing and will vary wildly; you are going to need a little help, and we will save you a lot of time and hassle; just pick the phone up and ask.

Now the tricky bit starts. If you start with a manufacturer, they won’t be able to help. Main dealers might have one, but that will likely have been taken in a part-exchange deal, but their knowledge will probably be lacking because it isn’t their specialist area. Often dealers think selling WAVs is a solution for a more significant profit, but the truth is the work involved and the need for expertise to be applied, and the league time is such that the margins need to be more significant.

These vehicles must be converted, that’s a high cost, and there is no ability to determine what they “should” cost. You can see what a car “CAPs” at in the standard car industry. CAP is a database of information which categorises and checks cars and will give a valuation for a specific vehicle or, in other words, is calculating the average value across the many hundreds or even thousands sold. That valuation will change regularly, just like share prices do.

There is no “CAP” system for WAVs because whilst every Volkswagen Caddy may look the same, it is not until you get inside that things will change. If we were to put two identical brand new VW Caddy Maxis next to each other and say one will cost you £23,000 and the other will cost you £50,000, you’d probably look at us as if we are mad.

Only when opening a WAV’s doors will you see the difference, but how does that make so much difference to the price. Quite simply, the conversion cost will drive the cost of the WAV. We are happy to explain why for those that want to know, not here because the individuality of each WAV means there are hundreds of explanations as to why this one or that one costs what they cost.

The simple way to find the right WAV

That’s where we at Southern Mobility Vehicles come in. Keep it simple and follow the search we have provided and that will lead you to a group, or maybe just one; it may suit, it may not. Ask for independent help and advice, and you will get to the right WAV for your needs much faster. Knowledge should be the power of the buyer, not the seller, to ensure they make the best decisions without being told what to do.

That having been said, compromise is often on the table when seeking a WAV. After all, you are a grown-up capable of making the best decision for your needs, armed with the correct facts and figures. All we are doing is guiding you towards what will work best for you without leading you down any path but yours.

Colour choice, specification, make, model, size, or even entry method could be a compromise, but wherever your search leads you, it’ll be a known rather than an unknown until you realise you made an expensive mistake. Then it will cost you more money to change it and probably a lot more time. Our WAVFinder has changed everything, but it must be married up with help and advice.

What could be worse than leaving your loved home to get onto a hated mode of transport? Probably not much. If you don’t feel safe, it’s noisy, ugly, mechanically unreliable, the conversion clatters or a wheelchair user or the driver is uncomfortable, you may as well be in a small boat in mountainous seas miles from land. It’s nowhere near as dangerous, but being on any mode of transport, whether a rollercoaster or a pushbike, is not a good feeling if it doesn’t feel right.

Don’t buy any WAV – Buy the right WAV

How vulnerable we feel is relative to us all individually in the circumstances we find ourselves in. If that can be reduced or eliminated by ensuring your mode of transport helps you feel the best you can, that must be the best result for any wheelchair user, driver, or maybe you are both.

This is not a field of dreams. It is reality, and compromise is on the table; plus, you don’t want a WAV, but you do need one. What price can you put on freedom and independence and the priceless happiness that a wheelchair accessible brings? Accepting this will make the process you embark on or are about to embark on much easier for you; that is our solemn promise.