Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The wheelchair was purchased for my husband: 5'9". 175 lb. The compact width eased his way around the house, the light weight enabled me to lift it into the vehicle. But after 3 weeks of use, one of the adjustable footrest rods sheared off. I sent an email to Karman: it's right up the freeway and I thought I could just drive up with the wheelchair and get a new adjustable footrest rod. I thought the engineers might want to see the sheared off rod. Instead, the sales mgr got involved, said Karman doesn't deal directly with customers and then implied it might be "customer negligence." No, it was poor engineering: my husband (who knows something about metallurgy) looked at the sheared off rod, said the material was too soft to ever hold up whereupon our 17 yr old grandson rigged up a repair. Yes, there's a trade off between "lightweight" and "durable" but engineers also have to be sensible. Likewise for a company that failed to do the right thing by not just sending a new adjustable footrest of better material. Instead of doing that it hid behind Amazon, the warranty, etc. and did nothing. If you buy their products, you'd better have your tools available (and a 17 yr old grandson who loves to tinker). Given this experience my advice to anyone looking at wheelchairs is to pass on Karman and go to more established companies with more time-tested products. Go to Invacare, Drive, etc. That's what I should have done.