Mistruths about Imported Japanese Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles

• May 20, 2019
• Category: Wheelchair Access Vehicle Modification

In a small industry like disability vehicles in Australia there are sure to be mistruths abounding.

Here at Integrity we’ve come across our own fair share of mistruths being spread by certain companies about imported wheelchair access vehicles – no name calling here – we call ourselves Integrity for a good reason!

Just today we got a call from one of our clients in his 80’s who bought a perfect little Toyota Voxy wheelchair vehicle with factory ramp for just $15,000 all up. It has been ideal for him and his wife and they have both enjoyed affordable disability motoring for the past few years.

He had an issue with a retractable belt and thought he’d pop into a local modifier out in Sydney’s west where he lives to help him fix it. He was quite surprised and shocked to hear our company and our products being extremely maligned.

He was told:

1. The imported Japanese wheelchair vehicles are not compliant to Australian Design Rules
2. The Japanese Vehicles wheelchair ramps and tie down points are not made in factory in Japan
3. You cannot get parts for Japanese vehicles when they break down
4. There is no one here to service these vehicles if they do break down – we can’t fix your modification if it breaks – actually no one can fix your modification.

…. Ummm – not true – not true at all.

We can tell you that:

1. All our imported Japanese wheelchair vehicles all have the VSCCS Compliance Certificates. That is: Vehicle Safety Compliance Certification Scheme Compliance Certificates. Simple fact: you cannot get a Certificate if you don’t comply to Australian Design Rules. Our vehicles are all compliant.
2. Yes they are designed in factory – they are not an after market design. Don’t take our word for it look it up on Toyota’s website: https://www.toyota-body.co.jp/english/products/welfare.html
3. We can get you parts in Australia or directly from our office in Japan
4. We can fix any part of the welcab feature … actually we sent out one of our friendly staff to go fix our clients belt and it took 10 minutes…

Also think about it – Toyota is world renown for building reliable, practical vehicles which are sold worldwide and yet their International Welcab Engineering standards are not quite good enough for the Australian market? Does that really make sense?

So if you do happen to hear someone in the industry bagging us out – think for a minute about why, and give us a call or better yet – come have a look at our products and decide for yourself. We value your freedom to be able to choose what is best for you!

We are proud of what we do – and I guess we ought to not be surprised when we are maligned by the big end of town - companies who would prefer that people pay $40,000 for a ramp rather than $35,000 for a whole vehicle including a ramp.

Which brings us to how and why we do this - specialising in wheelchair access vehicles began for us because a friend of ours needed a wheelchair car that was affordable. They knew we had lived in Japan for 12 years exporting vehicles and he wondered if there were disability vehicles in Japan …. We did some research and were honestly astounded at the prices of disability products and mods on vehicles in Australia. We imported a Toyota Alphard Welcab for our friend at a third the price of a modified vehicle and Integrity Car Sales And Rentals was born.

Since that time we have been serving families with disabilities selling and hiring affordable wheelchair accessible vehicles for the best possible price we can. And we have had many clients choose to sell their fairly new $60,000 vehicle because they had been waiting and waiting and waiting (you know what I mean by that) for a $40,000 vehicle modification. Finally they tire of waiting, they sell their car and come and buy one of our modified vehicles for between $20 to $40,000.

Also – good news - just recently we’ve had successful Participants get their modifications of their factory vehicle paid for by the Ndis by using the Ndis form: Request for Second Hand Already Modified Vehicle… If that perks your interest give us a call! !

So a word to the wise – if you hear someone bagging a company in competition to them there just may be a good reason for it! But don’t take our word for it. Come see our vehicles, get in and test drive one or rent it and you’ll see for yourself if it’s perfect for you. Here at Integrity we wish all our clients freedom to get out and explore at a price they can afford!