Re: Garage lifts

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-756 Ralph Moorhouse replied to Glenn Wasserman's question about garage 
lifts- "Best thing I ever bought......well almost!! Cost is around $3K. You 
need a 12 foot garage ceiling to handle  a Spider/Milano combination, i.e you 
can leave on on the top while parking other underneath.  You will learn how 
painful it is I you don't keep your head down while walking underneath!!  
Lock is very positive (at least on one I have).  Great for changing exhausts 
& other under car stuff.  Jacking a wheel up is best done before raising."

I agree on almost all points, the one difference being the 12' ceiling; I'm 
doing well enough under 10', 9" more than a stock-height Milano and a top-up 
Spider would need at a bare minimum. With the one I bought you need the 
combined heights of the two cars plus 4". The very positive lock is at seven 
points with 5.5" increments between them, and they will build one with custom 
locking heights if clearances are critical.

All remarks below refer to four-post lifts- there are two-post lifts which 
some may prefer, but the four-posts generally are more variable for personal 
preferences.

Shop around. There is about a $500 spread in prices, $2600-$3100. When I 
bought mine there were six brands advertised nationally, some of them with 
very minor differences. The posts are rolled structural I sections or square 
tubes with external sliders, or brake-formed plate C-sections with internal 
sliders; the platforms are steel sheet welded to rolled channels on the 
cheapest, thicker diamond plate welded to channels on others, and one-piece 
brake-formed diamond plate on others. On-ramps and end-stops are fixed on 
some, removable on others. Some are painted, some powder-coated; some black, 
some blue, one (powder-coated) with black posts and Rosso Italia platforms. 
Guess which I got? 

Most offer options, some more than others, including jack bridges, drip-pans, 
and casters (for moving either unloaded or with a car aboard in the low 
position.) The car-aboard-in-the-low-position in some cases (a wide-enough 
garage, with inadequate headroom) allows loading a car, turning 90 degrees, 
and parking the second car with hood or trunk under the lift. This could 
allow three cars in a standard-height two-car garage, if one car is 
seasonal-use - say, a Giulietta Sprint in salt-country.

One other option (offered with the brand which has the Rosso Italia formed 
plate platforms) is a mini-lift about a foot narrower and three feet shorter 
than the standard model which is scaled for a full-sized 6000 pound car. They 
also offer lifts 5" and 10" taller than standard, which could ease the 
how-painful-it-is-if-you-don't-keep-your-head-down problem which Ralph 
mentioned.

I'm omitting the name of the brand I got, because it would sound like an 
excessively fulsome endorsement. For most people this would be a one-time 
purchase, and there are enough detail differences in dimensions and 
construction that people should exercise their own discrimination. All have 
800 numbers.

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.

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