Hyundai Staria Problems

From the sounds of things, you need a vehicle that can accommodate the wheelchair as an actual seat in the car rather than having the chair folded and stored for the journey. With that in mind, a van or people-mover is by far the best best bet and the news is good, because there are plenty of choices. For a while there, people were converting Ford Falcon station-wagons for this task, but since the Falcon is no longer made, vans have become the new default vehicle to convert. Which makes plenty of sense.

There are specialist firms around that will carry out whatever conversion you require and tailor-make the ramps, lock-down points and grab-rails you need to make it work for you. Switched on companies will sit down with you and discuss your precise requirements and engineer something bespoke if necessary.

At the moment, the list of car choices is pretty long and includes the new Hyundai Staria, VW Caddy, LDV G10, VW Caravelle, Renault Kangoo, Renault Trafic, Hyundai iLoad, Mercedes-Benz V-Class, Toyota HiAce and, in case you need something really big, even the Toyota Coaster. Some of these companies are also registered as NDIS suppliers.

But don’t rule out a second-hand vehicle, either. There are websites around listing used wheelchair-accessible cars for sale. Some will be ex-taxis, but others can be relatively low-kilometre cars that might just have the exact layout you were looking for.

The Staria Load has a stack of standard safety features, including autonomous braking (including pedestrian and cyclist detection) blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure warning, lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise-control, a reversing camera and front and rear parking sensors. The best news is that those are included on every variant of the Staria Load, including the entry-level, front-wheel-drive model.

Had this been a case of you ordering a vehicle you were told would be fitted with these safety features and then discovering they weren’t included, you’d have been entitled to a refund of your deposit on the basis that the vehicle being supplied was not as described at the time you placed your order. But it seems Hyundai is being very serious about safety with this new vehicle, so those bases seem well and truly covered.