Hello everyone! Welcome to the TravelScoot newsletter. Each month our goal will be to provide you with useful information about your TravelScoot. We’ll be discussing maintenance tips, tricks, new product information, and updates on any important upcoming events.
The topic for this month’s post will be on hair donuts, a.k.a., hair holes, hair circles, or hair wads. If you have owned a TravelScoot for a while, you may want to check your scooter for hair donuts. Everyone gets them eventually. It’s unavoidable on all mobility scooters. What is a hair donut, you might ask? A hair donut is the result of riding over tiny, singular strands of hair, dirt, and debris that accumulate over time and bunch up inside your wheel axles to create a donut-looking object. Over time, these hairs can affect your scooter's performance and may slightly drain the battery if they become too out of control and block your wheel's ability to turn.
So let's walk through how to clean out each of the three hair donuts for each wheel of your TravelScoot. For your front wheel and right wheel, you will need the two largest Allen wrenches in your toolkit. You will also want to wear gloves.
For the motor wheel, you’ll need one 5 mm Allen wrench and a 18 mm open wrench. Simply loosen up your screws and motor nut, then take a long metal object like a screwdriver to gently tap out the axle.
A rubber mallet could be used to gently tap the axle in if you are having difficulties. Once the axle is removed, you can now access the hair. Remove it and reverse the process to replace the wheel. The wide front wheel is slightly more difficult to remove due to the axle bushings, but isn’t too complicated.
For more information on changing out the wheels, check out the following videos below:
Here's an after photo of the hair hole I cleaned out for this post.
Hopefully, this will help encourage you to clean your wheel axles at least every two years. Just remember that the best preventative measure you can take with your TravelScoot is cleanliness! A clean, lubricated scooter is a happy scooter.
If this is something that you cannot do on your own or with a friend, you can always send your scooter to us to clean and maintain, especially if it's been a few years since you bought it. Just give us a call or email to discuss what is needed.
Hopefully, you've found this post somewhat useful. Please let us know if there is something you would like for us to write about in our next newsletter. Thanks for reading, and happy scooting!