Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair Review 2024

Is a mobility issue keeping you from enjoying life to the fullest? Do you consider yourself to be a relatively “hands-on” kind of person? Are you looking for an electric wheelchair that will increase your freedom and mobility while allowing you to indulge your hands-on personality?

The more of those questions you answered in the affirmative, the more you’re going to love the Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair.

Make no mistake: Drive Medical is one of the top companies in the mobility industry, and they make superb products. This one is no exception, but as good as it is, this chair isn’t going to appeal to everyone. It would probably be a mistake to call it a niche product, but it is true that people tend to have strong opinions about this model – they either fall in love with it at first sight and ride, or they loathe it. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a middle ground.

The Titan placed a solid third in our recent roundup review of the best electric wheelchairs on the market today, and with good reason. It’s an exceptional piece of equipment. It is not, however, a perfect chair, and it does have some shortcomings and limitations you should be aware of.

Not to worry. In the sections that follow here in our Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair review, we’ll give you the inside scoop on everything the Titan can do, the kind of person it’s most likely to appeal to and let you know the things it’s not so good at. So you’ll have all the information you need to decide if this one is the “right” model for you.

Ready to take a closer look? Read on!

An Overview of the Titan Front Wheel Drive Electric Wheelchair

At first glance, you might mistake the Titan for a small-footprint riding lawnmower. It somehow manages to convey that image, while retaining a surprisingly sporty look with its swiveling Captain’s chair and red accents.

At second glance, of course, it becomes obvious that it’s not actually a riding lawnmower, and its design is interesting enough to draw most people in to have a closer look. While we’d hesitate to call it a beautiful chair, it is rather striking in an odd sort of way, and in our view, one of the better-looking chairs on the market today.

Even better, it’s offered by Drive Medical, one of the best-known companies in the mobility industry, so if you opt to purchase one, you know you’re getting quality, and you know that if there’s ever a problem, you can rely on the company’s exceptional post-sales support to take care of it for you.

It’s not just fun to look at though. Underneath its interesting exterior, there lurks a serious piece of engineering. Here are the basic stats on the Titan:

Features of the Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair

Adjustability & Comfort

The Titan Front Wheel Drive is highly adjustable, so you’ll be able to do a great deal of fine-tuning to make it a perfect fit for you. Adjustment options include:

The only chair we’ve found that offers more in the way of adjustment options is the Karman XO-202, and that model costs several times more than this one. So if adjustability matters to you, then there’s a lot to like here.

Comfort-wise it’s a mixed bag. The Captain’s chair is certainly comfortable and perfectly adequate for short to medium-duration sitting, and the presence of the headrest and the fact that the seat reclines means that you could even take a short nap in the chair if you wanted to.

If you have to spend all day in the chair though, as the day grinds on, you’re going to find yourself wishing the padding was a bit thicker on both the seat and the seat back. Much beyond six hours or so, and you’re going to be ready to get out of it and go sit someplace else for a while.

A Few Words About Portability

This is a heavy chair, weighing in at a hefty 158 pounds. Fortunately, you can disassemble the chair if you need to take it somewhere, and you can do it without tools.

Unfortunately, unless you’ve got a lift or a truck or van with a ramp, you pretty much have to disassemble it if you need to take it somewhere, and that’s a bit of a process. If you like taking stuff apart and putting it back together again, then this won’t feel like a negative to you in the least. If you don’t, you’re going to despise it, probably enough that it’ll prompt you to buy a small, lightweight transport chair for use away from home.

Even when you complete the disassembly, you’re still left with components weighing more than fifty pounds, so odds are, you’re going to need some help storing it in whatever vehicle you’re transporting it in. Once broken down, you won’t have much trouble finding places to put it, although all the pieces probably won’t fit in the same place (no way could you get all the components into the trunk of a full-sized sedan, for example, but if the back seat is available, then you could put the rest there). 

All that to say that it’s a bit of a challenge to move from Point A to Point B. Not an insurmountable problem to be sure, but be aware of that fact before you make a go/no-go decision on this model.

On-Board Storage & Extras

Here’s where we’re a bit disappointed. The Drive Medical Titan Power Chair offers tons of fabulous extras and add-ons, it’s just that none of them come standard on the chair except for the safety belt. 

Given the price of the chair, we would like to have seen at least some of the “extras” included as standard features, but here are some of the goodies you can order at the point of sale:

Some of these items, we can completely understand being optional (crutch/cane holder and an oxygen tank), but others, like the two storage options and the cup holder – those would have been nice to include on the base model, and they wouldn’t have increased the price much.

We do like that the chair offers two different storage options, standard or not. One of our biggest pet peeves is the absence of a storage device that can be easily accessed by the person sitting in the chair, so kudos to Drive Medical for offering the armrest storage bag. A solid addition, even if you have to order it special at the point of sale.

Outstanding Indoors and Out

Although the Drive Medical Titan Front Wheel Drive Electric Wheelchair has smaller drive wheels than the Cirrus Plus (10” versus 12”), it has them on the opposite way – the big wheels (12”) are in the front, while the small 8” casters are in the back. You wouldn’t think so, but front wheel drive makes a huge difference in terms of tackling outdoor terrains, and despite having slightly smaller than average drive wheels, there’s not much the Titan can’t handle.

Technically, it’s only rated to be able to handle a six percent slope, but once those front wheels dig in and start working, it can easily handle a steeper incline than that (although we don’t officially recommend it – stick to the manufacturer’s suggestions where that is concerned!).

Even better, it’s got a tight, 25” turning radius, so when you’re using it indoors, it can navigate even cramped spaces with relative ease, and the motor is more than powerful enough to navigate over even the most challenging indoor terrains.

We’re not saying it’s impossible to get the Titan stuck somewhere (indoors or out), but you’d have to work pretty hard at it. 

If there’s a downside here, it is the fact that the Titan suffers from the same limitation that the Cirrus Plus does – a max range of just fifteen miles. There are plenty of other chairs on the market today that far exceed this, so be sure to keep a watchful eye on the battery power gauge, or else you might not be able to make it home.

If you do run out of juice, you can free the wheels, so the chair can be pushed manually, but be aware that there are no handles on the back, so it’s going to be a tough slog to get it home that way, both because of the lack of handles and the chair’s total weight. It’s certainly possible, but it’ll be an unpleasant experience for whoever’s doing the pushing.

Pros & Cons of the Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair

As you can probably tell if you’ve read to this point, we really like the Titan and all that it has to offer. To summarize the glowing praise, we’ve given it in the sections above, our favorite features are these:

PROS

CONS

Final Thoughts on Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair

Personally, we love the Titan. It’s not quite as good as Drive Medical’s Cirrus Plus electric wheelchair, but then, those two chairs are aimed at different segments of the market. Fans of Titan would be bored to death with the Cirrus Plus, and fans of the Cirrus Plus would be decidedly unimpressed with what the Titan has to offer.

We recommend it without hesitation…for the right user. Just be sure you read this and other Drive Titan Power Chair reviews closely to be sure you are that user. If you are, you’re going to love the Titan. If you’re not, you’re probably going to wish you’d settled on a different model.

In our view, the “right” user is someone who:

If that sounds like you, the Drive Medical Titan Power Wheelchair is the chair you want.

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Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

• Drive Medical Wheelchair, Official Brand Website.
• Titan FWD Electric Wheelchair User Manual, Drive Medical.
• Choosing a Wheelchair, University of Washington.
• Wheelchair Elevating Legrests Guide, Sherman Oaks Medical.
• Is Any Wheelchair Better Than No Wheelchair? A Zimbabwean Perspective, NCBI.