hello all, I am wondering what everyone's method for jacking up their car is. Since its so low I had a tough time. I have 2 jack stands and a regular jack. However the regular jack barely fit under the car, not to mention i could only lift one side at a time. This made it hard to do a tire rotation. So what I'm asking is does anyone have a good method for lifting the whole car? Bottle Jack's perhaps?
This is a great low profile jack, plus it's reasonably light weight. It's almost always on sale for $59.99. www.harborfreight.com/15-ton-aluminum-rapid-pump-racing-floor-jack-64545.html Rob43
Get the 3 ton for 40 dollars more. I had the 1 1/2 ton and didn't like how it felt when raising the car. The 3 ton pushes it with ease. Hopefully you also have something underneath for any possible incidents.
I own 2 of these, no problems. I also have 2 big steel jacks for lifting my 6K + lbs truck. It's all about having the right tool for the job. Rob43
I do it one side at a time since tires these days need to stay on the same side. I use a low profile floor jack to lift the whole back and then put a jack stand under a rear jack point in front of a rear wheel. Then use the jack to lift the same side of the front from a bolt just inside from the back of the front wheel and place the stand at that jack point. Swap front to back and repeat on the other side. Next time, though, I may use my little ramps so I can get the floor jack under the front center and then put all four jack stands in place. I made the low ramps because even my low profile jack would not reach the front center lift point behind the transaxle. That might be faster.
@jerrymildred's last paragraph is the bee's knees for 4th Gen front lift with a floor jack. I believe his DIY ramps lift 3" (2 layers of 2x)? Gives you a little more clearance.
Yup! Two 2X8 stacked with the top one shorter than the bottom one to make a low ramp. Makes it easy to get the floor jack back under the center lift point and nothing drags on the way up like with full sized ramps.
Wow, really nice ramps. 2x4 fir studs are dirt cheap and could be used to make a version of that ramp using a ladder type frame. It would be slightly lighter too. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Well, @xliderider's sketch looks like the top layer of 2X4's is crossways, so they can easily be cut to 8" length (or 7-1/2) and fastened sideways across the lengthwise bottom 2X4's. More work to make, but should be lighter. Although mine are no problem for me to handle. They weigh about the same as a jack stand.
Yes, exactly. 2x4s attached crossways, like a ladder. Crossmembers could even be spaced slightly apart, maybe an inch or inch and a half to make it lighter and use less material. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Here's what I made for our Gen3: 2x12's with 4x4's in between. Jack up the front and place them under the front wheels then the rear for the backs and you have close to 6 additional inches of clearance with no concern of the car falling .
A picture is worth a thousand words!! Now I see how this is done! This can be put together for about 30 or 40 dollars of wood at home depot very easily. I will build this prior to my next oil change (December 2020). Long story short, about 4 years ago I had owned these solid steel very heavy car ramps. I had them for at least 15 years!! When I moved, I gave them away and bought the new rhino ramps. Now come to find that the rhino ramps may fail. So, I went to the internet to see if I could buy steel ramps. Yep, they are now scarce! And those I found were very expensive. This wood idea is a good back up to my rhino ramps. I don't trust the rhino ramps and we all know a faulty ramp could be very devistating.
Since I was building fencing at the time, the 4x4's were laying around : The 2x12's were left over from some raised planter boxes I built the wife for Mother's Day. So all was scrap and made the economics even more reasonable.
I built six of them for my wife. Had 2x12x12's cut in half so they were 6 feet and easier to haul in the Prius. This year we had our last blooms of artichokes, so next year we can enjoy them.
I used the black landscaping material and it has worked well so far. The weed wacker takes care of the growth around the outside. Five years later and the boxes are holding up well.
