Drive Medical Cruiser X4 Wheelchair Review 2024

Are you dealing with a mobility issue? Is it slowing you down and interfering with your quality of life?  

If so, you’ll be intrigued by our Drive Medical X4 Cruiser Wheelchair review.

It’s a light-duty wheelchair not designed for long-duration sitting, so if that’s the direction you need, this isn’t the chair for you. For just about everyone else, though, this is the little wheelchair that could.

As you’ll see in the following sections, it’s a highly configurable and adjustable model that appeals to a broad market. Drive Medical, one of the most respected names in the industry, offers it.

Sure, it has limitations, but it’s a budget-priced chair, which makes every limitation the model has entirely understandable and forgivable.  

While this model didn’t win our top pick as the best overall value wheelchair overall (that honor goes to the Medline K4 Basic, it places a close second in that category. Even if you don’t think this chair is a good fit for you, we think you’ll agree; for the money, it’s an amazing piece of engineering.

Let’s jump in and see what “the little chair that could” can do!

Key Features of Drive Medical’s X4 Cruiser Wheelchair

The first thing you’ll notice about the Drive Medical Cruiser X4 Lightweight is that it looks like a light-duty wheelchair.  Not that it looks fragile…in fact, it’s anything but being constructed of a mix of carbon steel and aluminum, and as such, it’s got a fair amount of heft to it at 39 pounds.

No, what makes it look like a light-duty wheelchair is the light nylon seat and seat back. There is no padding, so it’s not great for long-duration sitting.

It’s not an unattractive chair, just functional and utilitarian, and it only comes in one color, basic black, but the true strength of the design isn’t tied to its aesthetic, and we’ll start taking a look at those strengths right now, starting with the chair’s basic stats:

Weighing in at north of 30 pounds, it’s a bit of a chore to load into a vehicle for transport. Depending on the severity of your mobility issue, you may need help loading and unloading. Even so, it collapses into a small enough package that should fit in the trunk of most full-sized sedans, and SUVs should easily accommodate it.

Adjustability & Comfort

Those stats show that an almost shocking number of features are adjustable.

At the point of sale, you can order the Drive Medical Cruiser X4 Wheelchair with one of three different seat widths, choosing between 16”, 18”, or 20”, and depending on what option you select, other stats (seat depth and total chair weight). That, however, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The seat height can also be adjusted to three different settings; the back height can be fine, although not by nearly as much. The length of the footrests can also be modified, and the height of the (full-length) arms can be adjusted, too! Put all those elements together, and you get a chair designed to fit just about anyone.

We’ve seen wheelchairs costing two or three times as much that don’t have anywhere near the number of adjustment options this model offers.

In contrast, the X4 is a study because, as exceptional as it is on the adjustability front, it takes an entirely minimalist approach to comfort.  

The breathable nylon seat and back are moderately comfortable and easy to clean. However, if you sit in this chair for more than four hours at a time, it will start getting uncomfortable.

The good news is that this is one of the least expensive wheelchairs on the market.  As such, it’s a trivial matter to buy an aftermarket cushion for the seat and seat back and improve the comfort level. It still won’t be something you’ll want to spend all day in, but you’ll get at least another two hours of reasonable comfort, and that’s not bad.

The final note here is that we love the brakes! It has independently locking left—and right-side brakes with locking mechanisms that are easily accessible by the person sitting in the chair. Of course, we’d love it if it also included handbrakes on the rear handles, but their absence was a design decision to keep the price low. I can’t fault them for that.

On-Board Storage & Extras

As a budget-priced chair, you wouldn’t expect to find many extras on offer, and sure enough, the Drive Cruiser X4 Wheelchair only has one “extra” to talk about, but it’s a very, very good one.  

The footrests can be raised or lowered in addition to swinging away.

Most wheelchairs offer swing-away footrests, which allow the person sitting in the chair to wheel right up next to the dinner table and enjoy a meal with the family without transferring from the wheelchair to a dining chair.

Reclining footrests, though… that’s another matter entirely, and only a few models available today even offer the feature, which puts the X4 in rare company and makes it all the more outstanding, especially for the modest price you’ll pay.

You can buy a safety belt from the company as optional equipment, and you’ll probably also want some onboard storage system. Unfortunately, the company doesn’t sell one of those, but some aftermarket vendors do.

In some ways, the relative lack of options is a blessing in disguise. It keeps the cost of the chair low, and you’re not paying for extras you won’t wind up using. Plus, you have unlimited flexibility to get all the extras you want, and you still won’t wind up spending as much as you would on many other wheelchair models. That’s wins all around!

Below Average on Outdoor Terrains

Another weakness of the X4’s design is that it’s not great on outdoor terrain. You’ll be okay if you use the chair mostly indoors with only occasional jaunts outside and stick to fairly flat, even terrain. But even though it sports 22” mag wheels in the back and 8” casters in the front, the rear wheels aren’t designed to handle challenging terrain.

A Slight Learning Curve, (Almost) No Assembly Required

Given all of the things you can adjust on the X4, it should be no surprise that there is a bit of a learning curve here. It won’t take long to get the hang of all the adjustments; once you make them, you won’t have to re-adjust. Plan on perhaps thirty minutes of experimentation until you get it just as you want. After that, it’s nothing but smooth sailing.

When delivered to your door, the Cruiser X4 Wheelchair Manual is almost completely assembled. The only thing you have to do to get ready to roll is pop the footrests on, which will take no more than a couple of minutes. Kudos to Drive Medical for that!

Pros & Cons of the Cruiser X4 Wheelchair

There’s a lot to like about the X4 Cruiser. Hands down, our favorite aspect of the chair is that so many of its features can be modified, allowing you to create your own “perfect fit.”  The inclining leg rests are a close second, but that’s a feature that not everyone will want or need, whereas the adjustability is universal.

Regarding negatives, we don’t have any real complaints about the design. But in a perfect world, we’d like to see handbrakes added to the push handles on the back of the seat and perhaps a bit more padding built-in. As we said earlier, though, the absence of those things was a conscious design decision aimed at keeping the total cost of the chair low.

One thing worth mentioning here, though, is that we read more than a few complaints about the quality of the welds on certain parts of the chair. As we understand it, this is mostly a function of the company’s decision to use mixed materials (carbon steel and aluminum) in the chair’s construction. Where these two are affixed together, the welds are somewhat weaker than the welds of like materials, and it has caused some issues.

Drive Medical is an outstanding company with world-class support, and models in the Drive Medical lineup are solid all around. You may never encounter the issue personally, but if you do, getting it fixed to your satisfaction shouldn’t be a problem.

Final Thoughts on Drive Medical Cruiser X4 Wheelchair

We love the X4 but readily admit that it’s not the “right” chair for everyone.

If you weigh more than 300 pounds, plan on using the chair outdoors on uneven terrain regularly, or need to be in it for several hours every day, this isn’t the chair for you.

For everyone else, though, the X4 is an outstanding pick. It is recommended as the Little Wheelchair That Could.

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Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

• Drive Medical Cruiser X4 Lightweight Chair, Official Brand Website.
• Drive Medical Cruiser X4 Wheelchair Manual.
• The Top Wheelchair Safety Tips for Nurses and Caregivers, HLS Healthcare.
• Assisting a Client to Use the Wheelchair, The University of Western Australia.
• Electric Wheelchairs (Power Chairs) and Manual Wheelchairs, Electric-Wheelchairs-101.