Hello,
I'm reaching out for advice on a rather unique vehicle—a Q Runner enclosed mobility scooter (I bought it and received it in October of 2023, it has less than 1500 miles on it). I understand this is far from the standard cars you typically work with, but I'm hoping your broad mechanical knowledge might help me troubleshoot an issue.
The scooter is electric (1200W motor, goes 30 miles before a recharge and has 5 Daisy chained let acid batteries) with front and rear disc brakes operated by handlebar grips. The problem lies with the front driver-side system. The wheel itself doesn’t have play, but the entire assembly—the wheel, rotor, disc, and related components—has excessive play where it attaches to the support bar that helps with steering as well as excessive squeaking when the vehicle moves, best description of sound is like a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel. This wobble is significant compared to the passenger side, which feels stable. Despite tightening all bolts, the driver-side assembly still has too much play. Additionally, it’s starting to show signs of rotation issues, but I do have a replacement caliper ready if needed.
My local mechanic, who kindly attempted to diagnose the issue despite typically working on standard vehicles, noted that the driver-side components are attached to a bar resembling an "I" shape, with brackets secured by pins and bolts. With my limited knowledge this is the best way I can describe what I am seeing. The wobbling persists even after inspecting these parts. We’re unsure if this could be due to a worn gasket, alignment issue, or something else.
Given the niche nature of this scooter and the lack of local expertise, I’d be grateful for any advice or insights you might offer. If parts are unavailable or repairs aren’t feasible, my last resort would be replacing the scooter entirely. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration!
Although it's likely no one here has direct experience with that vehicle there is some information available online. The company web site has a limited view of the front suspension and disc brake:
It appears that vehicle has a simple beam axle front suspension with coil-over shocks. It stands to reason that there would be some kind of bushings employed in the moving parts of the suspension and that those are worn. (If there are no bushings and just simple pins into drilled holes it's more of a problem because the actual structural parts of the suspension would have had those attachment points become reamed out from wear and tear. Additionally the front wheels likely pivot on kingpins and the steering mechanism will have pivots and (hopefully) bushings.
The wobbling or shimmy you are experiencing is something common to vehicles that have solid axle front suspensions. If that vehicle were capable of highway speeds it would become what in the Jeep world is known as "death wobble" - a violent wobbling of the front suspension that can be caused by any worn front-end parts.
A mechanic should be able to examine the pivot points for wear in bushings or the suspension parts themselves. The vehicle seller has a parts page but unfortunately it lists no parts and has no parts diagrams, it just lists parts suppliers. However the setup is simple enough that a decent mechanic really should be able to figure it out - though replacement parts availability is unknown.
@chucktobias so this vehicle only goes top speed when fully charged on a flat surface of 19 mi an hour but the average normal speed is 15 mph. I was talking to a cousin of mine he was thinking it could have been bushings as well he referred for me to grab some oil that kind of repairs rubber bushings or helps them slightly restore something like that once again I am not really technically inclined with this kind of thing but I agree I didn't think there would be anybody on here who would be able to help and yes I agree that information on here meaning the internet for these kind of vehicles are very slim to none for some reason even though oversees these are used a lot you can't even find much details on these in foreign languages so I'm having a hard time gathering details so all I could say is when I apply my front brakes the handlebars Rock back and forth and it almost the sensation I feel I want to compare to a warped vinyl record when the needle has to constantly move and it almost feels like it would be what it would seem like with a steering wheel for a death wobble that's what I'm assuming it's not excessive play where you can fully lift it up it's able to be shifted up and down I'll say 25% greater than the sister side. I appreciate your response I'm going to keep trying to dig if I can find somebody who's willing to help me with this and look at it who understands older cars and this type of wheel setup I think I could get a more solid answer even though this is on a really tiny little itty bitty vehicle if the setup for the tires can be understood it would point me in the right direction because the only thing I can think of is either replacing everything that the rotor attaches to that hooks to the beam, or saving money and getting a new one and then using this one for parts when the newer one would degrade for parts that are still in good shape. But thank you very much for responding to me
I can't really parse that dense block of text for all the details, however, what you might want to try is a place that repairs golf carts. It's quite possible the setup on your vehicle is mechanically similar to one of those.