If you want a scooter that travels in a car, you are choosing between two designs. Neither is better — they suit different people.
Dismantling scooters
These come apart, usually into four or five pieces: seat, battery, front section, rear section, sometimes the basket.
The advantage is the individual lift. A 46 kg scooter might have a heaviest piece of just 13 kg. If lifting is your limit, this is how you get around it.
The cost is time and repetition. It is four or five trips to the boot and back, twice per outing. Fine when you are fresh; less appealing in the rain with shopping to load as well. It also means learning the order things go together in — straightforward, but there is a knack.
Best for: limited lifting strength, reasonable general mobility, unhurried trips.
Folding scooters
These fold in one movement — a lever, a catch, sometimes a button on the key fob — and go in as a single unit.
The advantage is speed and simplicity. Seconds rather than minutes, nothing to reassemble, nothing to leave behind. Many fold small enough to wheel along like a suitcase.
The cost is that one lift is the whole scooter. That might be 25 kg or more in a single go, at arm's length over a boot lip.
Best for: people who can manage the whole weight, or who usually travel with someone who can.
Automatic folding
A subset of folding scooters that fold themselves at the press of a button. Wonderful if bending and reaching are difficult. It is still a single whole-scooter lift into the boot, and the mechanism adds cost and a little weight.
Be honest about what you can lift
A boot lift is not the same as lifting the equivalent off the floor — you are reaching forward, over a lip, often with your back bent.
- Up to 13 kg — most people who can lift at all
- 13–18 kg — fine for many, but try it first
- 18–25 kg — realistically two people, or one fit person
- Over 25 kg — consider a hoist
Be honest about the worst day, not the best one. You will use this when you are tired.
Questions people forget
- Who loads it? If it is always your partner, buy for their strength. If it is sometimes you alone, buy for that.
- Does the boot have room for everything else? Measure with the shopping in.
- Parcel shelf. Often has to come out. Where does it live?
- Where does it charge? Some fold-and-go scooters have removable batteries so you can carry just the battery indoors.
A third option worth considering
If the scooter almost never travels, do not compromise the scooter for the car. A comfortable non-folding scooter with better suspension, bigger wheels and more range will serve you better every single day, and you can hire or borrow for the occasional trip.
People often buy portability they use twice a year and live with a smaller, harsher scooter for the other 363 days.
Tell us your car
Ring free on 0800 593 0400 and tell us what you drive and who does the lifting. We will tell you which design suits you.