£300 call out charge for wheelchair repair

[strawberryshortcake1]

I have a friend who has an electric wheelchair and has been charged a £300 call out charge to repair a punctured wheel (coming from Chesham to Colchester). Labour fee is £80, pneumatic tube about £40. Does the call out fee seem excessive? considering most of their customers are on disability benefits and are a captive audience?

Outrageous, unless there are circumstances that haven't been mentioned here.

Don't think so, it's electric, but it's the tyre needs replacing not the motor.

Just looked at the invoice again, it's actually £315!

Chesham to Colchester is a long way, are there any more local firms?

I suspect it’s the distance that’s made the call out fee so steep.

This wa my thought - it's a 3 hour round trip, assuming a clear run

So that's 4 hours labour, plus parts, fuel, insurance and so on - £315 sounds quite reaosnable

I'm trying to find out if other quotes were obtained or if she's tied into this particular company for some reason.

They may be the ones who make/sell the wheelchair but there might well be a more local independent person who could do things like tyre changes even if they couldn’t do the electronics etc

Perfectly reasonable. That’s a couple hours drive each way, so that’s at least 4 hours of time that needs to be paid for. And fuel. And wear and tear on the car, business use insurance etc.

It doesn’t really matter that their clients are disabled, they’re a business and all those costs need to be covered by the user.

I have a friend with ehlers danlos and she is now wheelchair bound. She changes her own tyres. But I appreciate that she still has some ability to manoeuvre herself around out of the chair, whereas a lot of people don’t.

They tried to charge my dad a lot to replace an inner tube so he just did it himself. Badly. I think I was tied to a certain company he has to use.

She could have called any local handyman or anyone who does bike repair. It’s the sort of thing wheelchair users have in their back pocket; local people who can do that sort of repair. To save the money for when they need to specialist repairs. But, the fee is reasonable as that’s a lot of hours of time that needs to be covered, as well as the overheads involved in having a business vehicle.

Is that 315 total or 315 plus parts and labour?

£315 for 4 hours labour including parts seems about right.
I work for a medium sized company and we charge £75 an hour for labour.

It’s over 80 miles from Chesham to Colchester!!!! That’s a 160 mile round trip taking around 4 hours plus plus his time doing the job.

I organise a lot of engineers and on a ‘call out’ we charge £350 with a charge of £160 for every hour thereafter. This covers 3 hours of driving with a charge of £68 per hour of driving extra that they have to do to get to site.

He is charging £72 roughly for his fuel costs and £130 ish for his time to travel there and back. I’d say £315 is a fair price given the specific set of circumstances. The £80 labour fee you appear to think covers his entire time and costs barely covers his 45p per mile charge he is entitled to claim for his vehicle use.

If you are that aggrieved with it, find a local handyman or bike shop to replace the tyre - not some bloke who is travelling 160 miles to do it.

She's tied into this firm, and my understanding is that you can't just get any garage or cycle shop to repair the tyre on an electric wheelchair. I'm just wondering how someone with severe disabilities on benefits is supposed to find that kind of money.

I agree. I have 2 friends who use big leccy wheelchairs and I'm 99.9% sure neither never had to pay for repairs or parts that are needed, for their physical stability or to make their chairs go. The only reason they've ever paid is custom bits that aren't necessary for their conditions.

If your friend's chair is an NHS chair, and she's using a repair service run by or bought in by, the NHS, then it is very strange that the service is based so far away or that she is having to pay anything. If she privately bought a chair, then she's presumably using the company that she bought it off. If she chose to use one so far away and/or one that tied her into using them, or a company that works for them, for repairs, that's her choice. Is the chair relatively new? Could it be that she has a guarantee that the company do repairs free or very cheap for the first 3 years or something, if she uses them.

Long distance lots of time and fuel. It's shit but the price is probably fair.

Was it over the weekend too?

No, not week end. I guess it's because it's a specialist chair due to the nature of her disabilities and not NHS. I suppose the alternative is not have a chair, stay at home and save the expense, but that's no life, and firms have to make a living.

That is outrageous.

as an aside look at insurance. My ds has a manual wheelchair through wheelchair services but we pay insurance extra through a company called fish. Cost £25 for the year.

Often a warranty will be invalid if you don’t use the approved repair company.

Often people do it anyway, for simple repairs, especially if some of the warranty period has already passed.

Most people don’t need to spend out because they have a NHS chair. Unfortunately buying a chair independently comes with this sort of risk and “hidden” charge. It’s not right but sadly very common.

A lot of people use their mobility component of PIP/ADP towards leasing a chair. Repairs would be covered just like a mobility car?

I think you’ve answered your own question. If she’s on disability benefits then she’s already been given the money to fund the repair.

The company a relative bought their electric wheelchair arranges for those needing repair to be couriered to them. They send a box, relative pays courier charges. It works well.

It's the ' labour time' driving.
We run a business and our call outs inc the travel time for our drivers. I'm not sending someone on a 4 hour round trip for 1 hours labour charge. That's madness.
Plus fuel , all the business expenses still have to be covered.