Garage lift

[Frank K.]

What should I look for in a home garage storage and personal work lift?

[David K.]

Re: Garage lift

Frank, Back yard buddy looks to me, to be the best built unit that I have seen. It's not cheap, but built in Ohio. Check out there web site. It has some good info to watch.http://www.backyardbuddy.com/index.htmlDave

[Terry D.]

Re: Garage lift

search the archives, this has been discussed several times, also I believe you will find one of the members sells lifts

[Duane D.]

Re: Garage lift

Frank, I have had a Backyard Buddy lift for 13 years and it still works perfectly. It's built like a tank!

[Joe R.]

Re: Garage lift

Frank,

I would recommend contacting Mark Tulley through this board. Get an ALI certified lift to be on the safe side. Are you looking for a two post or four post lift? How high is your ceiling?

Joe

[Anthony S.]

Re: Garage lift

Frank - based on posts in the archives I purchased a Quality Lift - http://www.qualitylifts.com/Q4P07.shtml
Made in the USA, ANSI, ALI and ETA certified and reasonable priced.

[Tim G.]

Re: Garage lift

I purchased a four post lift a few months ago for storage reasons and I love it. I can work on things that I couldn't easily work on before.

[Bill M.]

Re: Garage lift

I have a 2 post and a 4 post lift 10 foot ceilings. 2 post better for working and 4 post better for quick storage. 2 post is auto lifters and the 4 post is from the people who took over, cant remember their name. Both are great.

[Mark T.]

Re: Garage lift

Frank send me a e-mail and I will give you my 2 cents on lifts . I have been doing lifts for over 30 years and I have delt with just about every brand out there. Autolifters by the way is out of business.
Mark

[Craig J.]

Re: Garage lift

The pump and motor are USA-made, the steel and welding is Chinese. It is an excellent value for the money. Quality is the same as Challenger and Voyager. The only difference is the Quality lift can be blue or black. The other two brands are only black. product.

I recently bought a Quality 9,000 lb lift (Q4P09H) and rolling jack. Overall, I'm happy with this lift and would buy the same lift again.

[Phil D.]

Re: Garage lift

For storage, a 4 post is the most convenient, however, a 2-post enables more types of work to be done on more types of cars, i.e. suspension, front-wheel drive, engine out the bottom, etc. If corvettes and other rear-wheel drive cars are all you expect to deal with, get a 4-post lift with two sliding scissor jacks. That way you can very easily jack the wheels up off the ramps and do about 90% of the work you could do on a 2-post lift and still have the drive-on convenience for storage and quick jobs like oil changes. Heck, I even used mine to lift the body off a Corvette. I bought a Direct Lift about 6 years ago and its been the best money I ever spent in my shop. I should have bought it years earlier.

[Craig J.]

Re: Garage lift

+1 on what Phil is saying. Having a lift is really handy, and the rolling jack (not sure you really need 2, as they are not inexpensive) is worth every penny. This morning I helped a friend with his Honda S2000 (neat car!) -- did an oil change and flushed the brake fluid. The rolling jack made it very easy to lift an end of the car, remove the wheels, and bleed the brakes.

In a previous post, I wasn't clear what lift I was referring to...the Quality/Challenger/Voyager lifts have the USA-made pump and motor (Stone) but all the steel is Chinese.

If you have 220V outlets (20 A) in the garage, I'd also recommend geting the motor wired for 220V vs. 110V. Lifting is much quicker with the 220V motor.