Lifts & Service
A lift that stalls isn't an inconvenience — it's a day you can't leave the house. We're certified on the equipment we fit, and we service it long after the invoice is paid.
Certified installation
We're certified to install and service both lines — the two most widely supported platform lifts in North America, which matters when you're four states from home and something needs attention.
A lift is specified by chair weight, door opening, floor height, and — the part people forget — who operates it. A lift a caregiver runs and a lift you run alone from your chair are different installations.
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter · Ford Transit · RAM ProMaster. A platform lift needs the door height, floor structure and payload capacity that only a full-size van has — so this isn't a modification we can make to a minivan, an SUV or a car, whoever sells you one.
If that's what you're driving, you have two good options instead: a factory VMI minivan conversion, or a powered transfer seat and a chair hoist in the vehicle you have. We'll tell you honestly which fits.
Not all lifts are the same
“Wheelchair lift” covers three genuinely different machines. Which one suits you depends less on the chair than on the doorway, the floor height, and what else the van has to do.
Most common
The platform folds upright inside the door opening and swings out to carry you. Proven, widely serviced, and the highest capacity of the three.
The trade: folded up, it occupies part of the doorway, so other passengers step around it.
The quiet one
The whole mechanism lives in a cassette beneath the floor. It slides out from under the van, unfolds, and lowers. Stowed, the doorway is completely clear.
The trade: it needs the underfloor space and ground clearance to house the cassette, which is why it goes in full-size vans.
No power needed
A fold-out or in-floor ramp on a lowered-floor minivan. Nothing to fail electrically, and nothing to stow in the doorway.
The trade: it only works if the floor is low enough to keep the slope safe — which means a minivan conversion, not a full-size van.
A BraunAbility UVL we installed in a custom accessible van built by Van America. Because the mechanism lives under the floor, the interior is laid out as if the lift weren’t there at all — which is what makes a galley and a bed possible in the same vehicle.
What it actually does
A platform lift has one job and it has to do it every day — in the rain, in a parking garage, sometimes with nobody else around. This is a full cycle on a Sprinter we fitted: folded away, out, down to the ground, back up, and folded away again.
Roughly fifty seconds, which is about what it takes in real life. Worth knowing before you plan a morning around it.
The part to ask about on any lift, ours or anyone else’s: the manual backup. Every good lift has a way to bring the platform down when the vehicle’s electrics won’t. Know what yours is and practice it once in the driveway, before you need it in a parking garage at night.
The rest of the system
Getting in is one problem. Staying safely put at sixty miles an hour is a different one, and it's the part that gets skimped on.
Securement, restraint, driving controls and storage all have to work together — and all of it has to be operable by whoever is actually there on the day.
Securement
We're certified on Q'STRAINT securement — the hardware that anchors the chair to the floor so it can't move in a crash — retractable four-point tie-downs, and docking systems that let a solo driver secure themselves without help. Paired with occupant restraints that are crash-tested to protect the person, not just hold the chair in place.
Docking is the difference between needing an attendant and not.
Entry
In-floor ramps disappear beneath the floor and leave the doorway clear. Fold-out ramps cost less and fit more vehicles. Manual ramps keep working when the battery doesn't.
Side-entry needs roughly eight feet of clearance to deploy; rear-entry works in a standard space.
Driving
Push-rock and push-pull hand controls, left-foot accelerators, steering knobs, and reduced-effort steering and braking — fitted to match a driver rehabilitation specialist's evaluation.
We work alongside your CDRS evaluation, not around it.
Seating
A powered seat that rotates out and lowers to chair height. If you transfer, this is often simpler and far cheaper than a full conversion — and it fits a much wider range of vehicles.
Worth asking about before you commit to anything larger.
Storage
Hitch-mounted and interior lifts for stowing a chair or scooter when the user transfers into a standard seat. The least invasive option, and the right one more often than people expect.
Rated by device weight and vehicle hitch capacity.
Access
Powered steps, door assists, handrails, and transfer points — the small hardware that decides whether an otherwise good vehicle is usable on a bad day.
Usually the cheapest change with the biggest daily effect.
Service
Bring us a lift we've never seen, in a van we didn't build, and we'll work on it. Southern Utah doesn't have many places that will, and that's a bad reason for someone to lose their independence for three weeks.
Funding
Accessible vehicles rarely come out of one pocket. Most of our customers assemble funding from more than one source, and the order you apply in changes what you get.
Automobile allowance and adaptive equipment grants for eligible veterans and service members.
State voc-rehab programs may fund modifications where the vehicle enables employment.
Most automakers offer a mobility reimbursement toward adaptive equipment on a new vehicle purchase.
We can point you to the right programs and paperwork. We're not financial advisors, and eligibility and amounts change — confirm current terms with the administering agency before you count on them.
Not sure where to start?
Plenty of people arrive certain they need a full conversion and leave with a transfer seat. Sometimes it runs the other way. Either way it starts with a conversation, not a quote.