Trolley jacks

[h0b0]

In a moment of madness I agreed to change the brakes on my wife’s car. I have previously done them on my own car and I was disappointed to find out they share the same st jack. I do have jack stands so going into the second car I thought I could make do with the supplied jack. It just wasn’t worth it.

The wife said she was having issues again today so I thought I would just bite the bullet and have a real jack. Found the Daytona jack at harbor freight. Apparently a copy of the snap on jack and very highly rated.

Anyone any experience of decent jacks? Does this look like one? What do others use?

daytona jack

[bluezedd]

It looks fine to me, and if it's highly rated and good value, I would say go for it.

There's not really a lot that can go wrong on a jack. When you get it though, I would take all the wheels etc off and grease them nicely, and get in the habit of maintaining it.

[GreenV8S]

bluezedd said:

There's not really a lot that can go wrong on a jack.

Some jacks need to be stored the right way up to avoid air locks, but that's the only gotcha I'd be concerned about as long as it is mechanically strong enough for the loads being applied.

[Evolved]

SGS engineering sell some great jacks and deliver too.

[h0b0]

Going to have to find some work to do on the cars to justify buying it now. My wife’s front brakes look in good shape so it may be a while until the jack is put into action.

[alabbasi]

Those are good jacks. They're basically a copy of a snapon jack and there should be about a billion reviews of them on youtube. Sign up to their mailing list, there's usually a coupon for them @ $179. Costco also sells pretty decent jacks from Arcan (red steel one). I've had one for about 10 years and never had a problem. Most of my cars are full size luxury cars.

[h0b0]

The jack that came with my Cayenne is laughable. Due to using it to put my car on stands and then using it to get it back off the jack stands it would itself into the plastic trim. Fortunately, very little damage was done and it’s just a plastic trim piece. But, when I saw the same jack in my wife’s Tiguan I was annoyed.

Having saved $400 on doing the rear brakes on my wife’s car and $3000 on doing them all round on my car I decided to reinvest some of the savings in better tools. One of the Best Buy’s was the caliper spreader I bought before doing my own car. It’s only $20 but makes pushing the pistons back easy. I also bought 2 ratcheting wrench sets. One metric and one imperial. Next will be a breaker bar as I used a torque wrench which wasn’t ideal.

Oh, my jack stands are literally that. They are axel stands with a jack built in. They would be perfect if I could slide them under my car but they are a little too tall hence the need for a jack.

[Krikkit]

Evolved said:

SGS engineering sell some great jacks and deliver too.

Agreed, love mine - have the aluminium low-entry job.