Oil Change (987.2) on Ramps

What are the opinions on doing an oil change with the cars ***-up on ramps?

The drain plug is at the rear of the sump, so that won't work very well. It's designed for the oil to be changed with the car level like on a lift. I do it with four jack stands, which is what I'd recommend. You could probably also use your ramps with two jackstands but I've never tried that.

I use rhino ramps and then I jack the front up putting wood blocks under each front tire until its as level I I can get it.

Probably will go ramps and jack stands. I'm thinking the only jack I have out of storage won't go under as it sits.

I used to do it several ways before I finally bought Quick Jack - now I just lift the whole car. Before that I used to back-up the Rhino ramps and started the drain process. While draining I lifted the front with a floor jack on each side. I raised the front so it was a little higher than the rear. Then let the draining stop - about an hour. Then I lowered it and finished in the rear - replacing the filter and installing the plug /washer. IIRC, I also just used one floor jack and lifted only one front side. Seemed to work pretty well. A Cayman frame is pretty rigid so I didn't have concern about body flex. I'm not sure if I would do that with a Boxster . Edit - Just for safety, I didn't go under the car while lifting the front with jack(s). Wasn't really necessary since I could see when the oil stopped draining. Realistically, it would of been very safe since the ramps weren't going to fail. They could more than handle the weight since oversized them - mainly to accommodate the wider rear tires .

I've done front wheels with ramps, rear with jack stands (not just the jack). I'm a little surprised people are doing ramps on the rear and jacking the front end. What's the benefit of that approach? I did the ramps in front because I found it more intuitive to drive onto them going forward. With the rear being up on jack stands, I wasn't too worried about the car falling on me. Am I missing anything?

Probably not? Honestly I've never been a huge fan of ramps myself: they're big, fender clearance can be an issue, you can only do one side of the car with them. Jack stands have always worked very well for me. I splurged a few years ago on a set of the Esco flat top stands: they are super strong and stable. The Cayman is quite easy to get up on four stands on the jack points: I jack at each rear jack point in turn, putting a stand under the front point on the same side. Then I jack the rear suspension bars under the aluminum suspension casting and put stands under the rear jack points. I can have it up and level in just a few minutes, and it's nice and stable and safe.

My jack doesnt clear if the car is on the ground but once I get the the rear on the ramps it clears at the front jack points .

You may want to consider purchasing lift bars. I purchased a set and love them. They make jacking up the Cayman much easier. Here is a link to their website https://www.liftbars.com/ . Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I will be getting a real lift in a few months.

I'm all jelly..

Got my oil changed, but took way too long. I need to figure where to jack and still leave the jack points open for stands. Ramps didn't work even from the rear.

See my post #7 above

Looked at the rear suspension and did not want to jack from there without knowing it was a good spot.

Looking at a fairly inexpensive two post from Mechanics Superstore. AMGO BP-9X 9,000 lb. 2 Post Lift (mechanicsuperstore.com)

The two-post lift offers a lot of advantages. My concern with what I've seen is stress. The heaviest vehicle I will lift is my F150 truck - 4045 pounds empty. As you can imagine, as soon as that thing is off the ground, there is a lot of torque at the lift base trying to bend those columns inward. Some of the load can be absorbed by an overhead crossbeam seen on some lifts, but most will go to the outboard anchor bolts. I did a quick calculation on a BendPak lift yesterday and came up with about 1000 pounds of tension on each of the four outboard bolts. That assumes the truck center of gravity is precisely between the two posts. That gets my attention. I don't know why the manufacturers go with such small baseplates. Increasing the size would be a cheap way to increase the safety margin.

My guess is they do the math. Since they all have about the same size plates. AMGO makes (Or at least used to make) a set of plate extenders, but mostly for front back stress when on unsure concrete.

I just jack up at the driver's side and put a stand underneath for safety. I then put a big oil pan underneath and remove the drain plug . Then I lower the car back onto the ground to get it flat. Let it sit a bit, then jack back up, replace the plug , and remove the oil filter. No fuss, no muss and I get as much oil out as possible. BTW, measure the oil you drained and add the same amount of fresh oil plus a pint for the filter. Drive, measure oil level, correct as necessary. Done.

My car is lowered so I jack it up in front first and put race ramps under the front tires (clearance issues), then jack back (now front won't hit driveway) and use either another pair of race ramps or two jack stands. Takes 10 minutes to get my Cayman up in the air.

BTW - use the same time type as shown on the rear of the car above on all 4 corners...