What is your real cost of a Vertical Wheelchair Lift or Home Elevator???
I believe an educated consumer is our best customer. So here is a real life story I can share with you. The picture below is of a small printed circuit board for a Canadian made vertical wheelchair lift. It looks like a lot of other PC boards, but it does not cost like most other PC Cards. This little part retails for $2,253.00, plus there will be labor charges added for diagnosis and installation of this card. The consumer can expect to pay in excess of $2,500.00 for just this repair. Keep in mind there have also been many other repairs done in the past 6-7 years to keep this lift functional.
If we were in a time warp and went back 6-7 years ago, we would be about the time that this Vertical Wheelchair Lift was installed. At this time there was a request for a proposal that went out to multiple companies to supply a wheelchair lift. The bid was won by a Vermont based Accessibility dealer based solely on a marginally lower price (less than 2%). Now back in the current time frame, this school is paying a huge amount for this part that is only supplied by the manufacturer. The original accessibility company who supplied the lift has no desire and will not service the product. Not all manufacturers build lifts with PC Board on Top of PC boards like this manufacturer. In fact, one of the reasons we decided to represent Symmetry was because of the simplicity of the design.
Please do your homework and know what your long term costs are when making a capital purchase. If the company you are buying the lift from is not interested in servicing the product after the warranty is over, don't walk - run away!!!
