Reply to "Car lifts"

On garage lifts, you have several styles- there are two-post side lifts, 4 post lifts and the one poor boys like myself buy- a single post hydraulic type from a bankrupt gas station. Going price is $500 and you move & install it. It runs off a 1-horse air compressor and has three heights of safety locks. It installs easily once you dig a 7' hole 24" in dia. The column slides in and is backfilled with dry sand. In some areas like CA, the cylinder with 45 gallons of hydraulic oil is considered to be a 'hazardous waste container' and they want you to build a concrete containment pit with an alarm & sump pump in the hole. Mine's in NV, and we don't mind other people's business.
With a single column, the center of the car is inaccessible and with the 4-post types, the suspension is inaccessible. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford the two-post side lift type which has no inaccessible areas, but a friend in the Bay Area had trouble with his new (Bend-Pak?) 2-post. For the 1st try, he lifted his wife's 05 Caddy to 7ft. At full lift, one cable popped off the ram, dropping that side 18" until the safety lock engaged. This left the expensive 4000-lb car slanted sideways at 30 degrees, 7 ft in the air. LOTS of quick work by 3 guys with floor jacks and 4x4s to push it back up to where the loose cable could be put back onto the hydraulic ram top. Turns out that one hydraulic cylinder was slightly bent in shipment; he quickly made a pair of steel plate brackets and tack-welded them to the tops of both rams as cable guides. Always something.....