Using a Boom Style Lift

Using a Boom Style Lift

Boom lifts are another powered way to load your mobility scooter or chair inside the back of your vehicle or even sometimes into the (large) trunk of a car. They are basically a small hoist, with a mounting plate that bolts to your floorboards, and a mast and boom arm that lift and lower using a remote control pendant. They are powered by direct current to your cars battery. A bracket has to be bolted to the seat post of your scooter or chair to be able to hook a lifting clamp on in order to safely lift it up. Depending on your particular combination of vehicle and scooter/ power wheelchair it may or may not be necessary to take the seat off to fit it inside.

In order to use a boom lift, you bring your scooter to the back of the vehicle, open your hatchback or trunk, reach in and grab the lifting clamp and insert it onto the bracket on the seat post. Then you rotate the boom arm out and over your scooter, and lower the lifting strap down so it can be attached to the lifting clamp. Some of these lifts rotate out with power from the hand control, and some don’t, so you would have to manually rotate the arm out from your vehicle. Once the clamp is hooked to the lift strap, you lift the scooter up with the power remote control high enough to clear the floorboards or trunk edge of your car and then rotate the scooter inside before lowering it to the floor. If you are loading into the trunk of a car, you then have to take the mast and boom arm off the lift to be able to close the trunk. If you are loading into a van, SUV or pickup then you are good to go.

Boom style lifts need a solid floor space to be bolted down. If your vehicle has hidden storage under the floor, a boom lift may not work. Also, plenty of headroom is necessary to allow enough room to swing your scooter inside the back hatch of your vehicle, so the height of the hatch has to be tall enough to accommodate it. If loading into the back of a pickup truck, there are special boom lifts that are not only weather-proof, but have a really long reach to lift up and over the side of a truck.

Our Product Experts can help you decide if an inside Boom-style lift is the answer for your transportation needs. Give us a call at 1-800-850-0335, Option #3.