Car Shopping as a Wheelchair User (Pt. 2): Finding & “Test-Riding” the Car
Hey guys! I'm back. So, today it looks like
we are going to be buying a 2019 Acura RDX A-Spec. We have been looking for months
and months, trying to find a car that would work that's a little bit bigger
than what we have now… and I'm pretty sure we found it… So, I'm going to show you
some things that ended up being the final deciding factors in why we're
choosing this car. You'll notice the height from the bottom of the car to the
ground. It's a lot lower than a lot of the other SUVs that I've seen. We've
tried a little bit larger versions, but this just seems like this is the one.
It
is used but it's in fantastic shape. There's an adjustable hatch. Loading and
unloading is going be a little bit different from the rx-8, if you remember…
So, I will be either loading into the passenger side or behind the passenger
side… depending on if I'm by myself or not. For time's sake,
I'm gonna have our guy, Robert over here in a minute a do a test drive because
again… We can't actually drive the car ourselves until we get hand controls. So, I'm
gonna have him help us kind of do a little drive around so we can get a feel
for what it feels like and you all can see what it's like to kind of get into
the car and how it's gonna work for us.
So, one thing that I loved about this car
is the adjustable hatch. It's super, super simple…
and so instead of it opening all the way, which I wouldn't be able to reach…
You can actually set it. So, I hit the button and it actually stops right
here and then I hit the button again and it closes for me.
You can set it at different heights and things like that, but that's about the
height that I would use.
Okay, so I'm actually for right now… and for time
sake, I'm gonna get into the passenger side and we're actually gonna go ahead
and just put my chair in the very, very back since our guy Robert here is gonna
be driving it for us today… but normally, what we would do is lean this seat all
the way back and then take it across… unlike our RX-8 that we had where it goes
directly behind us. I'm gonna go ahead and load up now. So, another thing when I remember is door
widths.
If your chairs is too wide, you might not be able to get it in… which is
another reason we decided to go with this car too. There's plenty of space to get it
in and across and into the car. So, we're in the car right now. I'm in the front
passenger and Wes is transferring into the back driver side. So again, this is another
area where door width really matters. It's gonna make it easier
for transferring in and out of your chair into the car…
and you'll notice there are handles. There's handles to help you get in and out
to help also help with transfers. So, since my chair's already in the back,
he's gonna actually load his chair in from the passenger… back passenger seat… Geez…. back driver's seat. I don't know why I keep saying passenger. I will say that the fact that this car was still here was
very meant to be… because we've driven by at least two other times since we saw you last time and I'm like "It's still there.
That feels like a sign." Yeah. So this is a used car, but it only
has 4400 miles. You can't get a whole lot better than that on a used car.
I appreciate you being willing to do this.
Robert: No problem! So, you can see so this is kinda sort of how
we would do it from the front too… just bring it across our body up into the
seat next to us. So that's going to work pretty much the same in the
driver's seat. Wes: So you're doing to take all those dings off our bill, right Robert: Of course.
So, one thing that I loved about this car right off the bat was the
cameras. It just has a really, really good view all the way around. It was by far
one of the best backup cameras that I've seen in any car that we've looked at so
far. Leather seats. So, here's the camera view and I can show you kind of the
alignment of where your car is gonna get up… go… and it starts beeping you get too
close to an object. There's kind of the display. So, another really great thing about this car is that it has dual
driver positions. So, for me… I'm actually going to be using driver one
and driver two… and that's what I'll use… I'll use driver one to to get my chair
in… and then I'll switch it to driver two to bring it up to the height, so I can
actually drive…
And then if Wes ever drives my car, then he can just adjust it
however and then I can always go back and reset it to whichever one I need.
Awesome sunroof. Double sunroof here. Tons and tons of room in the back. As you
can see, my chair is completely together in the back right now.
We're gonna have room for dogs probably… and the seat in the back is really, really roomy too. Okay… So, I'm gonna stop right now and kinda just enjoy the ride. So, now we just
got done with our test drive. I'm actually about to buy my first like… big
girl car. I'm pretty excited. The next step is that we are gonna get hand controls put
on the car. Acura will actually send the car to the mobility shop that's
going to put hand controls on…
And hand controls run anywhere from a
$1,000 to $2,000, but some car companies actually will offer a
discount for things like that… So… We're gonna go do some paperwork. I'm super
excited. This is about as good as you can get on a used car. I mean a little over 4,000 miles. That's awesome… and it rides like a dream like… without being
cliche…. Yeah. It really is so smooth. So, we're gonna go inside and finish some
paperwork. Robert: Congratulations!
Lindsey: Thank you so much.Thank you for everything! Robert: And thank you again shopping
with us at Gary Force Acura. Lindsey: Robert at Acura has been awesome. He's been super patient with us and got us in a car that I'm so excited about. I just bought a car, you guys. It doesn't even seem real right now. We are going to still have to get
hand controls put on it and eventually get it lowered… but I'm super, super excited… Like,
this car is awesome! So if you guys have any questions about the process,
there are rebates and things like that certain companies offer, so let me
know if you have any questions on that part of the process as well.
You guys
have a great night and I will talk to you soon! Bye!.
