Hitch Mounted Wheel Chair and Scooter Carrier Review

Review of a Hitch Mounted Wheel Chair and Scooter Carrier

Today we are going to show you part number SC500 from Rage Powersport Products. What this is is a hitch-mounted wheelchair carrier and scooter carrier. This cargo carrier can also be used for a variety of other things, aside from the original purpose. What is nice about this is it actually comes with a 5-foot-long ramp to easily roll up your wheelchair or scooter onto the carrier itself. It uses a hinged, bi-fold ramp design It can also double as a regular cargo carrier. It comes complete with built-in tie-down mounting points, and also included is an anti-rattle device. And one last thing about the ramp itself is it can actually fold completely flat into the platform when you are not using it. Now we will cover some more of these features in a little bit more detail.

One of the first features we will show you is the anti-rattle device. As you can see here, we have installed a typical 2-inch receiver hitch. It is not hooked up right now, but this is the part right here that makes it an anti-rattle. What this does is, when your carrier is plugged into the hitch and securely attached with the pin, this plate goes up here. And on the bottom are three screws. These three screws actually tighten up against the bottom edge of the hitch and pull the cargo carrier down and clamp it into one position, where it cannot go anywhere. And you tighten those three screws down with a 17-millimeter socket.

The next feature we are going to show you is that the whole carrier can actually tilt up when you are not carrying anything in it. So you will not have a carrier hanging out the back of your vehicle unnecessarily. This is the pin right here. Pull out the safety clip. You may need to pull a little bit of the tension off of it. Pull off the pin, push it back into position, and replace the pin. There you have it: when you are not using it, you do not have to have it hanging out for no apparent reason. Next, we will unfold the bi-fold ramp, which is the best part of this carrier. It has a neat little pin release here. Just pull up the pin and grab the handle and just pull it right up. And also you have got another pin back here that allows you to keep the door up in an upright position when you are carrying something inside of it and then hold it open still and unfold your ramp.

Now we will go ahead and demonstrate the ramp itself. We do not have a wheelchair or anything like that but we will actually use a lawnmower here and roll it up on here to give you a better idea of how much room it takes and how easy it is to do it. We have our lawnmower in place, properly centered over the cargo carrier. All we need to do now is just go ahead and tie it down. It has got plenty of hooks right here - four on each side to tie down your equipment. Same thing on the opposite side, as well as two on the non-ramp side of the carrier. One nice little detail on here is it has carrying handles built into it also. It also has a nice rubber lining in there a little easier on your fingers as you are taking the unit on and off of your vehicle. All right, and that covers it for part number SC500.