Thread: D3/D4 rear headroom load area space.

Originally Posted by jonesy63

News flash! "Salesman doesn't know own product!"

How cynical are we, suggesting such things about people in suits who hang around car yards!

As for the Llams and Faultmates etc. The height at the side for transferring from the chair to the car seat when the vehicle is at rest currently is fine.

What would be good if it were possible to get the ground to tailgate height lower for the chair to climb up. So an ability to drop the rear of the car lower than current would be good. It is what lots of the other wheelchair accessible vehicles do.

A side hinged tailgate would be good in this case, or even a full length lift up tailgate.

Diana

Mine's lower tailgate is 800 mm at normal height, 750 at access height and 680 at Llams extra low. Its about 630 with the supports unclipped (30 seconds to do) and just not touching the bumper but still needs to be supported. The curved edge might present a challenge.

Edit: A specially made steel bar might allow the tailgate to lower to a greater angle.

Just the rear could be made to lower which would effectively lower the tailgate edge more but the vehicle would not comply with specific legislation. Lowering only the rear or 1 side of a vehicle must only be available whilst stationary and Llams doesn't access the vehicle speed signal, not in its current form anyway.

Just a note.. When I did have my D4 on belly or transport mode it had some issues raising back up to normal height. Also bearing in mind my D4 is 6 months old with around 15k on the clock.

Admittedly I had been fiddling with the system for about an hour (up&down many times) & the air pump was running most of that time.

Part way through the lift it stopped due to the pump or pump motor being too hot. I was only able to see this via the faultmate.

I suppose if you were to drop the vehicle to its lowest point on a regular basis you may need to look at beefing up the air reservoir or similar.

Rob

Raising from right down to normal height is about the same as from access height to off-road height which does rely on the compressor not being too hot for it to complete in 1 operation. As long as the compressor can cool before the next time such a lift is required, there shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know if transport mode deflates the airsprings to their "hold-shape" minimum pressure but it would add more work for the compressor if it does. Lowering until the height sensor voltages no longer change doesn't empty the airsprings.

Originally Posted by Robocop

I suppose if you were to drop the vehicle to its lowest point on a regular basis you may need to look at beefing up the air reservoir or similar.

A duplicate reservoir on the other side may be worthwhile.

Originally Posted by Graeme

I don't know if transport mode deflates the airsprings to their "hold-shape" minimum pressure but it would add more work for the compressor if it does.

Pretty sure transport mode does just that - around 15psi. However, when testing my emergency inflation kit, we had two bags at a time totally deflated, and the car managed a lift to on-road height in only a few seconds more than access to on-road. Not something I'd like the system to have to do on a continual basis though.

Cheers,

Gordon

Mine went from bump-stops to +30mm in a matter of seconds today, but the compressor was cold as the vehicle hadn't been started for 24 hrs.