Dolfan

OK, I'm considering to get some form of a lift for my garage. I've read a few posts and thought I ask a few direct questions. I've got about 10' 3" ceilings so I have fairly good vertical space in the 3 car garage.

Most of my work will be tire changes/oil & trans fluid changes/brakes/suspension/ general other maintenance on a C4, C5 Z06, VW Passat, Dakota truck. The Z06 is lowered and tough to get anything under of course. I'm tired of crawling around the ground and having my body take the brunt of the work.

The main types I'm considering are 4 post lifts and scissor lifts.

4 Post questions:
How realistic is it to do tire changes/brake type work with a car on these and lifted by a jacks or stands? It looks like even once the car is off the two main ramps that it would be very difficult to work around those?

Are these completely self contained, no additional hydraulic components like some of the scissor units?


Scissors lift questions:
When lifting the vehicles do they move forward or backward in addition to up, or does the movement of the lift keep the vehicle in the same space?

Most of these have a lift of about 44"-48" how is that to work under? I'm 6'-1"? I guess much of the work is on a shop seat?

I think the hydraulic engine portion on most of these are portable, are they awkward to roll around, get in the way?


Cost is a consideration and it looks like a scissor is going to be about $500-800 cheaper based on lift choices. I'm leaning toward the scissor as my main goal is maintenance, but the added bonus of storage is not to be overlooked.

Any advise is appreciated.

Falcon

Putting a car on a lift to change tires wouldn't be worth it. Who'd want to lift the tires 2 times, once to take them off and then to put them back on.

I've got a 4 post lift and use it to primarily to store a car and to change the fluids and inspection. I've got cross bars so that I can jack the car up while on the lift, but most of the brake maintance I do while the car is on jack stands on the ground. The tires only have to be lifted a couple of inches then.

WNDOPDLR

I use a 4 post Back Yard Buddy. Have had it for 6 years and it has been very reliable-in fact I have done nothing other than PM and it gets used HARD. Additionally, it is American made.

You will be limited with your ceiling height, mine is 12" and I raise the cars all the way up so that I can walk right underneath. We work on all the vehicles you mention with the exception of the VW. Wheels, tires, brakes are an every week chore as I am a track junkie and those items fall under PM. We simply jack off of the lift and raise one side of the car at a time, service both the wheels on that side and move to the other side. Oil changes, exhaust repair, even engine and tranny swaps are no problem and I suspect they might be with a scissors lift.

Whichever you choose, buy quality, not price. You are going to be working under this with a 3500# car over your head. Do you really want the lowest cost? I looked at a lot of lifts and have been very happy with the one I chose. Take the time, do your homework, and physically look at how they are constructed. There is some real scary stuff for sale out there.

Bill Dearborn

I have an Eagle 6000 lb Mid Rise Scissors lift that lifts a car 4 ft. It is a high quality and rugged lift. One thing you need to consider if you are looking at a 4 or 2 post lift is how much clearance you have when the garage door is open. I have 10 Ft ceilings as well and could lift my Corvette farily high on a 4 post unit with the garage door closed. However, with the garage door open I can only lift it 4 ft off the floor before the car hits the door. Even with the garage door closed I cannot lift my Tahoe as high as the lift will go as the roof hits the flourescent lights hanging from the ceiling.

When you lift a vehicle with a scissors lift it stays in the same position horizontally no matter how high you lift it. I am 5'10" and can get under the Vette and Tahoe by sitting on a roll around seat. The lift is great for the type of work you want to do. I do have to put several 2 x12s on either side of the lift to get the Vette high enough to drive over it and give me room to get my hands under to put the lift pads in place. I have them stacked 2 high and 2 wide on each side with the top ones several inches shorter to form a step so the car can climb up on them easily.

The lift can be moved around on the floor by using the pump stand but it does take some muscle as the lift weighs 900 lbs. Once I got the lift where I wanted it I left it in place and the Vette is parked over it. The stand is not hard to move by itself.

The hydraulic hose and the cable for the safety lock run from the pump stand to the lift and can get in the way of your roll around seat but if you put the stand close enough to the lift there is enough slack available that you can push them around a little as you work under the car.

If you want to spend more money there is a much fancier scissors lift available that has a walkway between the two sides of the scissors so you can do exhaust and drive line work.
http://eagleequip.com/page/EE/PROD/LI-SC/SP-7X

By the way this is a BendPak lift.

Before you decide on a lift make sure your garage floor can handle the extra stress. One thing to consider with the style scissors lift I have is the load bearing surface. In the front there is a large cylinder that connects the two sides of the lift. This cylinder provides half of the load bearing surface on the floor. In the rear there are two steel wheels several inches in diameter and a couple of inches wide. These two wheels provide the load bearing surface for the other half of the weight. If your concrete cannot stand the pressure under those two wheels when the lift is fully loaded with your truck you do not want this type of lift.

Bill

Dolfan

Falcon, as for tire change I figured on either model I could lift the car a couple inches all at once and change all 4 without the typical repositioning of the floor jack 2, 3, or 4 times depending on the vehicle. Interesting that you still do the brake work on the ground? Do you do it right there over the lift or in another garage bay?

Bill as far as load I assume the floor is standard 3000# concrete but I guess I might need to check that before going forward. In the long term I could even see doing the dropped concrete idea I've seen on the forum that puts the jack flush or near flush in a small pit. If I did that I could ensure the load bearing ability of that replacement pad area. Short term it would be the ramps like everyone else. And I doubt I'd need to move the lift around.

One other general idea I like is just lifting the car 8-16" when working on the motor, hunched over the fenders on the low car kills my back!

Good info so far guys.

VetteDrmr

Not sure why you didn't mention 2-post lifts. I'm running an asymmetric 2-post, and I've lifted everything from small-large passenger cars, 1/2 ton pickups, to a 3/4 ton duallie crew cab. You can get 2-posts with the balance cables running under a steel cross-channel, so the posts are about 7' tall. You'll be limited hieght-wise due to the roofline, but you'll still be able to do a bunch of work fairly comfortably (a lot more than on jackstands for sure!).

Quality-wise (wave the "buy American" flag), frankly I think you'll be hard-pressed to *know* where the parts for your lift are built. Mine is a 9000 lb. class lift, but there's no way I'd try to lift something that heavy. But, for a car ranging from 3000-4500 lbs., I've never had any problems at all. I also think this is one area where you can't just go by "you get what you pay for." You *might*, but I'd do the homework up front and buy what you're happy with, regardless whether it's the cheapest or not.

BTW, 2 or 4 post lifts will all challenges for getting lowered cars on the lift. For mine I put together a ramp made of a couple of 2x4s that I drive the rear wheels up on. For a 4-post lift you'll probably need some kind of extensions. Point is, just about all lifts will need something for lowered cars, and I believe there's a solution for every problem.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

Dolfan

The reason I'm not looking at 2 post is that the two post are located in the center of the bay area and on both sides that would impact the accessibility in the garage to get to things and get into the cars next to the bay with the lift. I figure at least with the posts in the corners it is away from much of the traffic in the garage. Two of the post would be close to the area near the doors so it really would be the front two post that would have to be dealt with.

That is my thought?

Falcon

Yes, I have another garage bay. I use a roll around seat and it makes it pretty easy.

The 4 post lifts won't lift the car frame. You'll have to jack the car up, as you would on the ground, to get the wheels off. You can get a pneumatic jacking system for these 4 post lifts that will lift the car up by the frame, but the cost is significant.

Wally said he jacks up one side of the car while it is on the lift, and removes the wheels and brakes. Then reverses the process for the other side. That makes sense and keeps the jacking to a minimum and leaves the car on a very stable platform while on the lift.

The Spark

I've always leaned toward a 4 post lift because it looks more stable sitting on 4 tires instead of hanging in the air on a 2 post lift. Sometimes my '72 Vette is in the air more weeks or months during restoration.

My biggest drawback with the 4 post is when you need to work on tires, brakes, etc. and you need it off the tires. I know they make jack trays that go between the frames to lift the cars. I saw where they have powered jacks that go between the frames so you can lift your car. That looks like you get the best of both worlds.

Dolfan

Yes the Jack Trays are available for the 4 Post lift but the thought of an additional $450 X 2 just sounds crazy to me. If you include this it make the comparision more like $1500 for scissors $3000 for 4 post roughly.

Also I think I would feel that I had wasted a bunch of money to do brake work off the lift back on jack stands that I already have today, If I didn't have the jacking mechanism for the lift.

This is a tough call I think.

0RAAMaudio

It is probably pretty hard to find a lift made in the US now and if so the pump, motor, etc are still probably made in Asia.

I bought this one in December, picked it up at their local warehouse(seperate company that sells them for nearly twice the price) and have been very happy with it.

My garage roof is less than 10 ft and I can easily walk under my Vette with room to spare(I am only 5'8" but have at least 4 inches of clearance.)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_Auto...3756.m14.l1318

Very good Ebay sellers, no shipping charge, on sell for even less than this add, place I picked it up have sold them a few years and not one problem ever reported even used commercially.

When I build my next place it is going to be 80% shop, at least, minimum of three lifts, two of these and one or two 4 post lifts as well.

If I was going to have a single lift I would have a 2 post over any others, anytime.

Rick

Falcon

Oh, it invaluable for changing the fluids and other work, i.e. sway bars, exhaust systems, and some others Wally mentioned. I use the lift all the time for various things, but found it easier to work from the ground when dealing with heavy objects like tires and such.

Keep in mind, I have a race car so it's always on the lift for something.

sperkins

I use my 4 post nearly every day. I can swap out my street wheels and tires to my track ones in less than 20 minutes using one single hydraulic sliding jack. FYI - My C5Z is stock, but too low to drive over my scissor lift.

VetteDrmr

While it's true that cars have to be more precisely located on a 2-post, it's really not a big issue, the vehicles tend to auto-locate balance-wise pretty well.

One problem that 4-post units have is the need to have all four corners square with each other, and the balance cables contribution to keeping everything square is more critical. Basically, the 2-post tends to have a larger tolerance of misalignment due to geometry (2 points define a line, 3 points define a plane. If that 4th point isn't on that plane, you'll have things start twisting).

I'M NOT SAYING 4-POSTS ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN 2-POSTS. Accidents can happen with both 2 and 4 post designs.

Food for thought.

Have a good one,
Mike

Bill Hetzel

I've looked at 2 & 4 post and will be getting a 2 post. It's just easier to work on cars with a 2 post. You do get used to walking around the posts after a while. And if you have a good one the stability thing is a non-issue. We had one in the race shop and put the tow vechile, Ford Excursion on it all the time.
The 2 post (Bend Pak) arms will go under a stock heigth C4,5,6 with no problem and there are optional low profile arms.

Min. concrete requirements for a 2 or 4 is 4 inches.

I looked at a lot of 4 posts and there is a lot of junk out there. Even some of the American made stuff is trash. Saving a coulpe of hunderd on a 4 post is like buying paper thin Chinese jack stands.

The good lifts are ETL approved and meet ANSI/ALI AlCTV- 2006 standards.

redtopz

I bought a used 2 post 9000 lb assymetrical bend pac lift. Came out of a Costco tire shop when they were forced to upgrade their lifts to have hydraulic controls on each arm. $2,000 delivered and installed in my shop. By far the best investment I've made in my shop. So much easier than having to drive up on a 4 post and then jack it up again to do wheel/brake/suspension work. Look for dealers of used commercial lifts that came out of auto repair shops. 6" concrete foundation is desireable or ask your dealer what is required.

FasterIsBetter

I bought a used Snap-On scissor lift, 9K lbs. capacity, from a garage that was going out of business a couple of years ago. I love it. Changing tires is super-easy. Takes about a minute to install the lifting pucks, put the arms in place and get the car up off the ground. When doing tires, I don't take it up high so it's easier to lift tires on and off. For bleeding brakes, changing pads, servicing calipers and rotors, oil changes, tranny and differential fluid changes, you name it, I find the scissor lift works great.

The only problem with mine is that the center portion is a solid steel bed, so no access to the exhaust and center part of the car. But that's no big deal either, as I lift the car, put is on a large set of jack stands, and bring the lift down. Takes no time to get it up on the stands. The only time I use my floor jack anymore is out at the track.

If I were buying a lift new, I would seriously look at one of the scissor lifts with an open center, just for the sake of being able to get to things easily. Otherwise, my old scissor lift is the best investment I've made in the garage, next to the cars themselves.