Jacking / Lifting points on your Prius

Thanks very much for the detail answers to all questions and concerns!

The "large bend" I was describing ought to be something related to the suspension since it straightens itself back once the car is lowered back. But now I do worry if I dented around the center area of the cross member. Unfortunately I don't have the "before" photos for the obvious reason, only the "after" ones:


The darker color around the long slot may have been where I jacked.

Some other angles:

I reset the parking brake really hard and tried jacking up from the side as you suggested. The noise came back and definitely somewhere from the rear. This time I had sandbags both in front and behind the rear tire. The noise could also be the suspension spring I guess?

Yes it is a small Sears 2-1/4 ton jack.

 

Is this the 90 degree weld you meant? (Lower right part of the picture)



It looks good except the channel seems made out of very thin sheet metal (see lower left part of the picture where the channel ends). I suppose the channel has another (stronger?) channel behind it so it's OK to jack up from here?

 

The suspension cross member looks OK to me. I'm a bit dizzy after looking at the car upside down...

If you are going to raise up the entire side of the car (which amounts to ~1,500 lb.) using just one jack point, I suggest that you use a piece of 2x4 wood (1 ft. long or more) to spread the load across that rail. That will reduce the chance of damage to the rail.

 

I finally figured out what the noise was. It was the tire(s) rubbing on the garage floor.

 

2x4 was too thick so I ended up using a piece of one inch thick oak. Worked well. Thanks!

 

Yeah, how'd you get the car to stick to the ceiling like that?
.
_H*

 

I just pushed really hard.

 

I place the jack stands in the front under the sub frame, and in the rear under the frame rails. If you look at the other side of the muffler (diver side), the frame rail is covered by a plastic peace, but Toyota has left a rectangular hole in so you can place the jack stand trough it.

 

This post is for pinch weld placement of jack stands.

You can also get jack stands that have a groove in the center for the pinch weld, like the ones in this forum:Jack stand placement - Zilvia.net Forums | Nissan 240SX (Silvia) and Z (Fairlady) Car Forum or the second picture in this forum is a good example: http://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=5845
This is a video example: http://www.ehow.com/video_4978617_timing-belt-water-pump-jack.html

If you are putting a jack stand that does not have a pinch weld groove in the middle, be sure to place it were the the pinch weld is reinforced. This is usually where you place the car jack.
Example: http://www.techguys.ca/howto/images/floorjack_08.jpg but the problem that you run into then is were do you place the car jack to lift the car. Or http://www.iwsti.com/forums/how-ins...ots-guide-getting-your-car-up-jackstands.html

I personal do not like using the pinch weld. The sub frame and rear frame rails are a lot stronger looking at a structural aspect of the vehicle. If you are not sure where the sub frame or rails are, you can Google them, but make sure the vehicle is of a unibody construction.

 

Here is one of the places I use. For lifting and securing the vehicle. By the way if anyone was wondering, that is a harbor freight tools aluminum floor jack that I purchased resonantly. At the time of purchasing the car, jack stands and jack, I was not planing the blue,black, silver theme, that is currently displayed.

 

I assume the Gen3 is the same as mentioned here. Manual refers only to the lift points (front middle, rear middle) for the floor jack, not where the jacks go. I've always put my cars on jacks at the points mentioned here, but I've found after some years that area becomes rusty and kind of nasty and frankly I've never much liked putting the entire weight of the vehicle on that. I've not used rubber or anything to cushion the pressure, though, which I will do now. I presume that even a piece of hose would work fine; the rubber going around the piece of sheet metal surely is accomplishing nothing, so you merely want rubber between the metal jack and the point of the car.

 

Hockey pucks make good jacking pads. On some cars some people attach them to the jacking points and leave them there. That's fairly common on late model Corvettes. At least then you know that if the shop guy knows enough to jack your car in the right spots, then a pad will be used.

A plan B for home use would be to mount one to your jack and each jack stand. Then you don't have to go looking for pads.

 

Been using the front jack points for lifting for over 4 years. The white hooks right in front of the front wheels. I can jack up the car there and put a jack stand at the jack point/seam weld area pretty fast.
I tried jacking at that seam/weld area once and its really weak. I bent it up and never went back. The toe hooks are pretty tough.

 

Forgive me if this was discussed somewhere but I did not find it. Today I put the floorjack under the square block (rubber?) in the front middle of the car, and mistook it for the front jack point. The jack wobbled and the car actually fell off. Later on I found the metal bracket for the square block is a little bent. I remember that I have used it as jack point before. [Slapping my head.]

What is the function of that square block? I could not find it anywhere in the manual. Something to limit the suspension system travel? Thanks.

(Credit: Picture borrowed from VFAQ).

 

@dude2 Wait, what? I thought that the rubber square that's very close to whatever point is indicated in my 2007 owner's manual as the front jack point is, in fact, the jack point. Why else would there be a rubber square, surface parallel to the ground, within inches of where the manual tells you to jack the vehicle?

Anyway, that's what I used and it worked nicely. I slipped my floor jack under the front of the car, before the front tire at a 30-degree angle off of perpendicular to the centerline of the vehicle. I kept on hitting the plastic of the fascia (or whatever that part of the exterior is called) in front of the wheel as I pumped it up, but I managed. I put stands on the sides where the metal is notched.

 

That rubber block is mass damper for rear engine mount. Its job is to reduce vibrations and resonances. If you bend it a little like dude2 it shouldn’t be that big of a problem. Even if it broke off it probably would be fine. But don’t use it as a jack point! Jacking point on that picture also appears to be wrong as the jack is under the engine mount.

Jack under a sub frame (also called K-frame or K-member) post 17 of this same topic Jacking / Lifting points on your Prius | PriusChat has the correct position in WHITE. Sub frame even has guides in it to make it easier to find the correct position.

 

I found this thread looking for this information: When I jacked up the car the rocker panel was bending and I was afraid of damage. I read of the rubber blocks and don't have any but I used two foot long 2x4 sections as blocks to distribute the weight and everything went fine.

 

Yes, that is my method as well to lift the side of the car. Also note the rear of the car has an inverted tower sticking down near the center rear, which you can use to easily raise the rear of the car. The front has the center jacking point at the middle of the cross member.

 

Yep, you were right. Didn't read your post until today and wound up taking off the damper. Guess I'll have someone with a welder reattach it. Lesson learned.

 

What sort of floor jack were you folks using? I have one from Harbor Freight which is about 2 feet long between the wheels, and about the same between the contact point of its lift arm and the pivot for the handle. (It is at least 5 years old, don't know if they even still make that model.) The taller metal part near the handle rubs on the plastic shield at the front of the car when placing the lift arm under the center of the K rail. But once positioned to lift there is no way to pump it because the handle is held flat by the bumper cover! It looks like a jack with a "reach" of about 3 feet is needed to lift from the front.

This same jack works fine on the Prius's rear jack point, and numerous other "normal" cars (Accord, Corolla, Civic.)

There isn't a lot of space on the designated section of the pinch welds, I don't see how I'm going to set a jack stand in there with the car lifted at (about) the same position with a scissors jack. That is probably why the front end of this car's pinch welds are a bit mangled, somebody probably jacked (or jack standed) on the squished part and that section was not reinforced enough to take the weight. On both sides. It wasn't me, it was like that when we bought it used.