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I’m considering buying a 4-post lift and have read back through some previous posts on this subject. Just wanted to see whose product everyone is using and level of satisfaction. I’ve checked with Back Yard Buddy (BYB), Eagle, and Panther. Would anyone suggest another?

Panther appears to be virtually the same product as Eagle, perhaps a start up from a former employee or probably buying from the same importer as I assume these are being manufactured over seas? Anyone know?

Eagle and Panther are priced at ~$1900 including ramps and some accessories, plus shipping. BYB does not publish their pricing (though they have online ordering? What’s up with that?), and quoted me $4200 with no accessories! I figured this may have been the chump price, sort of the ask not get not price, but when I inquired as to the price variance to competing products, let’s say their attitude about the price was ummmm………unapologetic.

I could literally buy two Eagle lifts and have them delivered for the price of one BYB. I’d certainly like to buy US, and am not eager to place my ride on a junk lift, but wow! That’s an incredible premium. I prefer the construction of the backyard buddy, but presume since Eagle (not sure about Panther) has been manufacturing and offering this product for quite a while, it is of reasonable quality and reliability. Anyone care to comment on that?

Not sure I can justify double the price for the comparative claims of BYB. The BYB website comparisons on construction/safety seem somewhat compelling, but these days, I'd rather have testimonials from customers who don't have any reason for bias.

Can anyone shed share there experience/opinions regarding these lifts, and what you may have paid and when you bought? –Thanks for your help.
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Pro-Park, Eagle, Bend Pak PF-7000, Stinger ST, Panther, Double-Park DP-7 are all the same "partially enclosed column" design. I believe they all require bolting to the floor, and question column flexability and the small surface area of the locks. Do any of those companies actually manufacture their lifts? Outside slider lifts like BYB have more inherent stability due to their design, do not require bolting to the floor, and have visable, captured locks. I've spent time around 3 or 4 brands and chose the BYB. With options, about $5k delivered, and have not regretted spending the money for one second. Not sure why BYB should appologize for their pricing compared to a $1700 lift, and yes you could buy 2 Hyundai's for what you pay for a nice Pantera. Good luck..
quote:
Originally posted by 74 GTS:
With the BYB, when you want to lift it with the wheels off, what kind of additional piece is use to accomplish that? Big Grin

I put my floor jack on one of two jacking/utility plates (that slide fore and aft beteen the runners) and lift. Or I put my floor jack on a runner and lift at the body jacking points as though the car is on the ground. There is a hydraulic lift accessory that can do this.

I started looking at 2-pole for this very concern (tire/wheel access), but found that the positives outweighed:
non-permanent
no lag bolts in cement
moveable with casters
drip pans (for parking a car underneath)
Many of the lifts mentioned here are not available in Ireland but i got good opinions on BendPak, so i bought a HD10St, 10000lb lift capacity, a bit over what i need but got a good deal and its best fit for my garage width, excellent piece of kit with air safety locks and connects to normal power supply.

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If you go to the Backyard Buddy site there's a link to a height calculator. I have a 10' ceiling with no lights or opener above the lift bay. I can put the Pantera all the way up and completely walk under the car without crouching (I'm 6'0"). I would say you'd need ~9' to stack them. Good luck..
I decided on Backyard Buddy and placed my order yesterday. Swallowed hard on the $ but the comparison videos at the BYB site just gave me the shakes (no Hyundai's in my garage Johnk Big Grin).

In regard to the headroom to stack, it will of course depend on the height of your cars, but there are several other things to consider. In my case, I have 130" at the door opening. You need to start subtracting from this figure.

My garage floor has grade so it drains toward the door. It's not much but you could lose up to 3" to the ceiling depending on how far upgrade you go.

At 9', if you have a conventional overhead door, you'll likely need to get rid of any trolley type door lift and high lift the door close to your ceiling. You'll need to consider the entire thickness of your door, any reinforcement rails on the backside, plus several more inches for clearance. Subtract this from your ceiling height.

The thickness of the deck varies on lifts but BYB is 4". Subtract again.

Whatever you have left is what you have to accomodate the height of both cars plus clearance between your top car and ceiling and bottom car and lift deck.

When I do all this at 130" I concluded that I could get my Pcar (mine is 42") raised such that the deck height was at least 75" with a few inches clearance. Add another 6" with the door down. Besides stacking, I figured this was adequate room to work standing under the car.

Good luck.
Congrats Panterror, what's the lead time on them these days?

I believe you'll never think about the cost once it's intalled. A suggestion, I had mine delivered to a local terminal. Unless you have a trailer that has a 15' bed, the best way to get it home is with a rollback. I'd be happy to offer suggestions that will make installation easier than what I went through. Let me know, and I'll forward my #.. Take care

John
>Congrats Panterror, what's the lead time on them these days?

6 weeks ARO,

>I believe you'll never think about the cost once it's intalled. A suggestion, I had mine delivered to a local terminal. Unless you have a trailer that has a 15' bed, the best way to get it home is with a rollback. I'd be happy to offer suggestions that will make installation easier than what I went through. Let me know, and I'll forward my #.. Take care

Thanks. I had read that in one of your earlier posts and took it to heart. I already have a rollback lined up. Thanks for the suggestion. Will post when I have it installed.

Kelly
quote:
With the arrival of the second pantera, I'm weighing the option of getting a 4 post lift to increase parking space in my garage.


Hey Dennis, congratulations, many of of can only aspire to become dual P car owners Smiler I guess with that wreck you're breaking out too, you're really a 2.5 P car owner, or maybe down to 2.2 with the rate stuff is selling on eBay

Post some pics of the new car.

Julian
Hey Dennis,

I went to your website; nice pics of the Hawaii 5-0 Pantera that's hiding under wraps in the main pic you posted. That's neet to have a P car with such a distinguished history and great that a great enthusiast like you has managed to get hold of it.....very fitting.

Good luck with her.
Julian
I plan to put it back to original as much as possible. Not much has changed on the car except for some mechanical improvements like cooling, starter, and carburetor. I'm taking off the bling air cleaner, valve covers, camber bar and such. I had a stash of original parts to replace them with. I was planning to have some racing roundel numbers made up to match the ones in the show.
In follow up to my opening post, after some comparison, I bought the BYB standard 7000 lb lift. Also bought the caster kit, sliding jack platform, and drip pans. I've had it installed for several weeks now and am very pleased with it. I would say it’s a good piece of equipment and I would recommend their product and the company. For those that are seriously considering a purchase of a BYB lift (several of you have contacted me ooff the forum), read on.

Pantera On lift

Rear View Stacked

Side View Stacked

It took some doing to high lift the garage door. I went with a door lift that was offered by wayne Dalton doors called Q-Drive. It’s a little pricey but nice. Soft start, stop, delyed close, and a few other features. The rails, hardware, and opener, with two remotes, keyless entry, courtesy light, and wall switch were $400. They quoted $275 for installation and I took them up on it. That was the best money spent in the whole project. It took them five trips to get it properly installed but they stuck with it and did a good job.

Highlift Garage Door

When it came to the buying the BYB autolift, the telephone support through inquiry up to and including the order process was very good, always able to reach them and get questions answered.

Shipping quotation was a little sketchy and some cause for concern because you basically own it when it leaves their door and managing shipping is your responsibility. In practice, BYB were much more supportive than this. They estimated $350 and I authorized use of that shipper. When it arrived locally, the shipping company told me $550, like it or lump it. I give the BYB crew the highest marks possible for helping me straighten that out and eventually get it back in line.

I had to collect the “package” at the freight terminal. As Johnk had suggested earlier in this post, I hired a roll back and went to the terminal to collect it.

As Delivered

I had an unknown level of shipping damage. It looked minor in that there was a ripped box within the package. I noted it on the freight bill. The most serious was one of the posts had come loose and slid out the end of the package. I’d say it probably wasn’t packed securely enough. I also order a number of accessories (rolling jack ramp and casters for moving the lift). I suspect BYB handles packaging of the standard lift package well but is less accomplished when it comes to packing the accessories. Of the four sheet metal pulley/cable guards on the on the cross members, three of the four were damaged. Two of them I could massage back into shape. On the remaining one, I had to drill out the two retaining pop rivets, get out my body tools, and pound, and work it back into shape as it was smashed flat and well beyond hand repair. These pieces aren’t optional. You can not assemble without them. Some of this may have come from the freight monkeys recklessly slamming the loose post back into the package, but I must partially fault BYB for inadequate packing of some of the items.

Pulley Cover

I was short shipped the end plates and stops that slide into each end of the ramps that prevent a car from rolling off either end. BYB apologized and promptly corrected this; I had the pieces in two days. –It happens. It did not stop me from assembling and using the unit.

The assembly instructions are adequate, and someone with reasonable mechanical aptitude can easily handle it. It took me and a friend about 6 hours to assembled and load a car. It would have taken about two hours if I didn’t have to repair, the sheet metal guards, get creative in how we handled the ramps (you should really have 4 people IMO, I’d say they go 350-400 lbs each), and the biggest issue; hand fit up several of the sliders.

The cross members on the BYB design completely surround the posts as opposed to other designs. It’s makes the lift much more stable and IMO safe. I’d highly advise all to go to the BYB website, and look at there comparison video. Based upon my experience viewing other lifts and now having my hands on the BYB, I would say it fairly compares their lift to other manufactures. This was the primary reason I spent over twice the $ for their lift. For me, it was the right call BUT……read on.

When you assemble the cross members over the posts and “tap” in the sliders (you can view and download illustrations from the BYB site), the instructions say do not force. Well, fair enough. They do not say what to do if the sliders are too tight. The sliding fit on two of the four posts were so tight that you couldn’t have beat them into place if you tried, nor would the weight of an empty ramp (or likely not even with a car) have been able to move it. I tried switching pieces….no luck. The tolerance on the posts was such that they were too tight. This is probably a liability of the design. However, after many caliper measurements and trips back and forth to my band sander carefully removing material from the backside of the plastic sliders, I was able to fit things up such that they would have a tight sliding fit. Still, it hangs up a little bit when lower with a vehicle on it. It tends to grab and then drop an inch or so. After multiple cycles and spraying the posts with clear Teflon lube, it’s much better and breaking in nicely. I’m not sure how many people buying a lift would be equipped to do this. Gents, if I had attempted to beat things together, I can guarantee that though I may have been able to hydraulically lift a car, it never would have lowered under its own weight without fitting up the sliders as described. –No way! I would have had the car on semi-permanent display six feet off the ground. If you have the mechanical aptitude to wrench on your own car, rudimentary knowledge of hydraulics, and common sense, all should be fine. My experience was not entirely bolt it together and flip the switch but what ever is? At six hours, it wasn’t bad either.

Having installed it, I’m very pleased to have it. The quality of life working on and maintaining my cars has improved greatly. The first time my car was on the lift, I found three areas where hoses and cables were rubbing and abrading (I promptly zip tied split rubber hose around the contact areas), several lost bolts and nuts were replaced, and I tied off a loose connector or two.

I bought the standard lift, but may have been able to use the extra high lift. I have a 132” ceiling. There’s a good foot to 18” above my car at full height. I’m 6’2” and can’t quite stand up straight without a very slight slouch but it’s still great! No need for extra long lift for me. I have plenty of room between the posts to drive in and even through the posts end to end if needed.

The sliding jack stand is great. Super heavy duty rollers, very stout, good piece. The casters that allow you to move the post are very cleverly designed. They go over center when you lower the lift on them. This is pretty cool because it uses the weight of the car to lift the whole rig and also guarantees that you can only attempt to roll it around when the platform, and/or car is in the lowered position. It’s very easy to move on its casters. You really need two people. It will nearly roll due to the grade of my garage floor!

Casters
Last edited by panterror
I have 2 Direct-lift's in my 3 car garage, work great. $1800 apiece. But with delivery, in home setup, and tax came to a little over $2400 apiece. I would not suggest putting these together yourself as they are very heavy. I ordered mine thru a company in Orlando and they are the best!! BTW it came with casters, drip trays, and jack tray!!
quote:
Originally posted by jvmax:
I have 2 Direct-lift's in my 3 car garage, work great. $1800 apiece. But with delivery, in home setup, and tax came to a little over $2400 apiece. I would not suggest putting these together yourself as they are very heavy. I ordered mine thru a company in Orlando and they are the best!! BTW it came with casters, drip trays, and jack tray!!

I set mine up totally solo in a weekend...but I would NOT recommend it!!!
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