What does the hive say about low profile racing jacks these days? My current $75 Harbor Freight jack has made it almost 3 years and its beginning to fail. It's taken a ton of abuse so I'm inclined to just pick up another one.
Am I missing a better jack that would last longer? I'd prefer aluminum and I have $250 to spend.
Everyone I know and race with uses the aluminum HF unit. (Including me)
I only use mine at the track/autocross though, at home I use the big/heavy/durable 3 ton HF unit.
My 7 year old HF aluminum racing jack was awesome. My new one with dual pistons is garbage. OTC sells a $250 one, but I haven't bought one. I'm trying to find another older single piston HF one.
home depot has a husky branded 1.5 ton aluminum/steel one for $49 right now in the "get this christmas stuff out of here" department. according to harborfreight.com versus homedepot.com the HF 1.5 ton is 31.4 lbs, the husky is 30.3. i'm going to buy one later today to keep in the race trailer.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-3000-lb-1-1-2-Ton-Aluminum-Steel-Floor-Jack-HD00118/205958536
Javelin wrote: My 7 year old HF aluminum racing jack was awesome. My new one with dual pistons is garbage. OTC sells a $250 one, but I haven't bought one. I'm trying to find another older single piston HF one.
I've had the $250 OTC jack for a couple years now but it hasn't been through much abuse. I've just been using it at home, and I'm not too hard on my tools. It's a great jack but I have no idea how it would put up with the abuse of traveling to races and being beaten on. It seems very well built but "seems" doesn't mean a lot when it comes to the rigors of racing.
I definitely think it's better made than the HF one, but $175 more betterrer? That's a question only you can answer for us!
What is failing on the HF jack? I had two fail and ended up replacing the seals, refilling with fluid and they were new again. Cheap and easy to do.
Most of the affordable aluminum jacks I've seen look pretty much identical to the HF ones, so I've been just sticking with those. I killed a 1.5 ton (pump pistons wouldn't return, so you had to pull them back up before making each stroke, but it worked fine other than that) after 2 or 3 years of pretty heavy use (including use in salty snow-slop). The 2.5 ton I replaced it with has been perfect so far.
Mine cost almost $500.00 CDN. I said give me a good quality American made jack. Three years later it broke and the repair depot said they couldn't fix it because it was made in China. So now I have a very cheap one from Amazon that I know is made in China and will only last a few years.
I've had my HF jack for at least a decade. It starts leaking every two or three years (especially if I use it in cold weather) and it's always the piston seals. Luckily, the seals are just O-rings so it's an hour job to take it apart and put in a new one.
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