Home Garage Service Lift

Can any one recommend a lift for the home for around $1000.00 i found one call Kwick lift that seens ok it goes us up 30 inches using a regular jack and is portable.

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http://www.e-autolifts.com/ Haven't bought from them... just found them with my research.

I have an eagle lift....it does cost more, but it has been super. Also, goes up enough so I can park another vehicle under it in the winter. It has an open bottom, so I can tinker with the car fairly easily. Not sure how much they are now, but I got mine for under 2K, and have had it for 5 years, and even moved it with me when I relocated. Best, J

I've been looking for quite a while...done a lot of research...MOST of these lifts are made in China...not all, but most. Consequently, a lot of the features or build quality will be much the same...separated only by price and someone else's name slapped on it and painted another color...however some of these are built with structurally inferior components....probably not enough to drop a 3,000 pound Porsche, but certainly not up to par with some of the US built ones. Better built...and US made = a lot more $$$. But there are some good outsourced ones around. Issues to consider are: How much clearance to the roof of your garage? How many spaces in your garage...Can you put in a four poster lift and stack your cars? If so, that's ideal. I only have a two car garage with insufficient height, so space is critical. I've focused in on the mid-rise lifts...or the scissor lifts. Bend-Pak is pretty good, and take a look at the Rotary ine of mid lifts...the PSL series looks great for limited space. when factoring in height, consider where the slip locks are. Some are prettty far apart and might not work out for your clearance. Consider the accessibility from underneath. Some of them are reinforced so that you can't get to an undercarriage on one end or the other. Most accomodate a Porsche with a rear engine very well. The placement and type of jack supports will affect your ability to take off a tire or do brake work. The "drive on height" of some of them requires you to build a ramp to drive up on...guys build them out of 2 X 12 lumber. Prices will run you from $1000 to $2400 depending upon features. You also have to factor in the delivery since they all weigh around 1000 pounds...and you've gotta get them off the truck and into your garage. In addition to regular shipping it will usually costs you another $120 for delivery with a hydraulic gate...then it's dropped in your garage and you do the rest. I'm probably going to go with the small Rotary PSL series...but there are others in that mid-rise category. You'll invariably find guys on here who have also done a lot of research and have their own particular favorite. For me, the critical issues are: portability..can I move it around the garage?; drive on height; accessibility of undercarriage; maximum raised height (42 inches is fine for me with a fused spine); type and placement of jack supports; safety locks spaced closer together to allow more latitude in where you want to stop. Good luck and don't buy a cheapie that might end up pinning you under it or collapsing on your beautiful car. I lost a good friend to a failed hydraulic jack (and no jack stands!!). There are also other threads in here and RennTech you might try searching. This is not a new subject. chuck

I agree. There was a great thread on this like 6 months ago. Maybe a year. -td

That's one of the most important statements. ALWAYS use jackstands if you are going under the car (in my case, I use them for everything). It's a mechanical support rather than a hydraulic one.

I've seen some service bays where the hydraulic mechanisms are buried in the ground, but still with the asymetical arms that come in from the sides. I haven't seen a supplier of those in my brief research. All I see are the two post and four post models. My problem is width and if I could get the lifting mechanism without the "outside" posts, I could make it work. It also seems that the arms are removable in these lifts? That way you could just put them on when you need to get under the car and remove them when you just need a parking spot. Any sources or leads for this type of lift?

In all my looking around for an ideal jack that would fit in my garage, I've never seen any sort of hydraulic jack that had lift arms that you could remove. I think the structural integrity and the weight of the arms would make a feature like that impractical.

If you have the ceiling height, get a used one -- I picked up a 2 post Rotary brand lift for $1200. It works great!

I'd give anything to have that much space to work in....that's like the 7th step of Nirvana.

Seriously Van, that's not a garage; it's a service center.

Not sure if they fit your budget for new ones but the Rotary Mid Rise has been great for me. Have done every kind of work needed on 914 and 993 on it. Only limitation is that for pulling motors it is not a good lift given the base itself gets in the way. Otherwise the capacity is 6,000 lbs and works like a charm every time. I did need to build the 2x12 ramps but that is a small price to pay for such flexibility and security. I wa able to find one used that was very reasonable so the deals are out there.

It took many years to build my dream garage... Finally I was in the right house, so I made it happen. Now if I only had a 996 in there...

Aournd $1000. not sure there are a lot of options.... Around $1500 there are tons of them... I jsut recently got one with moveable arms (as opposed to pads that fit under the longitudinals, between the wheels), that is better to deal with a variety of cars such as older 911s...