Picking a Scissor lift

Photo of your garage space might help with out decision making.

I have the Ranger QuickJack, while it doesn't get the car much higher than jackstands, it's much faster to get the car up and down and safer to do so. The other night I did an oil change and front brakes on my GF's car. Car up in the air and oil draining in a matter of minutes. For me to get around the car with my floorjack is a PITA when there's only 10-14 inches of clearance around 3 sides of the car. The QuickJack is also very inexpensive and very portable.

Thank you for all the replies, however, a scissor lift still is the best option.

Keith, those lifts are awesome but still not high enough.

To people suggesting the maxjax (the moveable 2 post) thats not an option because the concrete is not getting drilled.

Hopefully we'll have a decision made soon :-)

Ian F wrote: In reply to CarKid1989: I have the BendPak and there are two annoying things the Atlas addresses: Position stops. The BendPak has 3. The Atlas has 7. Safety release. The Atlas has a remote lever on the pump unit - lift off the position stop, pull the lever to release the safey, then hold while lowering the car. Releasing the lever automatically re-engages the position catch at the next stop. Simple, easy and safe. With the Bendpak you have to raise the car, then crawl under the car and release the safety by hand, then crawl back out to lower the car, then crawl back under the re-engage the safety - very annoying if you only want the car a foot or so off the ground and arguably not as safe as the Atlas as you are often under the car without safety catch protection.

I also have the BendPak MD-6XP and I'm not sure what you are talking about. I don't run under the car to set or release the safety. I just reviewed the owners manual and it doesn't mention anything like that. Maybe I have a newer model.

On mine you raise the lift just past the safety block and then lower it until it rests on the safety. To release you raise it up past where the safety "release" arm drops down and then you can lower it all the way.

Its been a long time since i updated or posted to this but we found a lift and its currently in the garage as of a few hours ago.

Went with a Danmar Cadet 6000xl.

From all the info i could gather, it seems to be darn near identical to the BendPak scissor lift, even down to the shipping weight.

It also helped that they were running a deal on em and the timing was great.

Install was not too bad and it was up and running in well under an hour.

Ill have pictures tomorrow.

In reply to jv8:

I don't understand how the safety can "just drop" after raising the lift up. What if you have the car at a higher setting and want to lower to a middle setting? How do you reengage the stop? Hell... for that matter, how do you engage the stop in the first place? What you are describing makes no sense when compared with how the lift (at least mine; ~5 years old) works.

CarKid: Yep. From that picture, the lift looks exactly like mine, only painted black.

Ian F wrote: In reply to jv8: I don't understand how the safety can "just drop" after raising the lift up. What if you have the car at a higher setting and want to lower to a middle setting? How do you reengage the stop? Hell... for that matter, how do you engage the stop in the first place? What you are describing makes no sense when compared with how the lift (at least mine; ~5 years old) works. CarKid: Yep. From that picture, the lift looks exactly like mine, only painted black.

At all times I leave the "rotating pointy thing" ("RPT") down as in the first picture:

As I raise the lift the arm/safety pin drags across the safety blocks. I raise to a point where I hear the pin drop off a block, but the RPT is still above the block. I then lower the lift until the safety pin rests on the block as in picture #2:

To release the safety I first raise the lift until the RPT also drops off the safety block (now both RPT and pin are below block). Then I can reverse direction and lower the lift to the ground while the RPT automatically makes the safety pin/arm rise above the safety blocks on the way down (see picture #3).

No going under the car unless it's safety locked.

Make sense?

In reply to jv8:

No, not really. The only way I've been able to get my lift to lower is by rotating the "RPT" totally up so that it is completely disengaged. I'll fiddle with it again when I get home tonight.

FWIW, the hydraulic lock is pretty solid. My car has been sitting on the lift for the past 18 months. Over the Winter, the only way I could fit my van in my garage was to raise the car to the absolute max height (above the highest stop) so the front bumper of the car was almost touching the windshield of the van. It's been that way for the last 5 months.

In reply to Ian F:

Sounds like your RPT might not be sliding up over the blocks correctly.

Over the winter I had some hydraulic fluid spots on the floor but I haven't traced them yet. Hopefully it's a fitting and not a piston seal.