4 post vs 2 post lifts

Hi gang. I could use a bit of help on my project for the spring. I want to put a lift on the side of my garage I don’t have the height inside and outside even in New England will be fine I want it for maintaining not making a living. That being said I do wish to finish a project car I’ve owned since 1989. I think I have all the parts found sans a few chrome bits. One thing I really need to do is front end work. I’d been thinking of a 4 post lift as being able to set the cars weight on the runway would make getting things right the 1st time easier. Another want and desire was to be able to park my toy hauler trailer in the same spot, it’s 102 wide but I can’t find any wide 4 post lifts anymore that are under $3000. So now brain is thinking a 2 post but this causes bigger problems with needing foundation work as I have none. I could for a 4 post I had thoughts on boring 8 deep holes and filling with concreate with studs to bolt 4 long “I” beams in an extended square to then bolt the lift to the beams even knowing most lift say no need to bolt if on slabs. So anyone know of a wide 4 post or have a good idea on keeping a 2 post held down without spending 40k in foundation work?

I love my 4 post. Its only a pain when doing Suspension work.

Check this website, they have a lift that meet your width requirement under $3k

Best Buy auto lifts

Auto lift car park 9 is $2400 shipped and 111" between columns

Not sure how good those are, but that website has some of the best prices when it comes to lifts.

Thank you Slippery! I had not seen that one was wider!! At one point about 5 years ago i was going to put one in a rental space but things changed when rent tripled and i moved out.

Either lift is still a new reader. Why would you trust it?

From working on the cars, I (personally) do way more suspension/brakes/undercar work than storage, so my 2 post is way easier to work on a car than my buddies' 4 post. It's not nearly as nice for storage or as a raising/lowering workbench, though!

I started with a single post lift, they can be found cheap. Just dig a hole in the ground then cement it into a pad. Our used one lasted 20 years, then we moved. We make our guide post removable so you could spin a car once in the air, this required proper balance but was a cool feature.

Now I have a two post, mine came in standard and extra wide. Always go for the extra wide, just nicer for opening doors and placing the car.

10 years now in 4" of cement, with the cables on top option which adds support for the columns.

I can't think of a time that I would prefer a four post over a two post. Two are enough to walk around. Most work in under the hood under the car or near the wheels, all areas that are fouled by a four post.

For storage a four post would be preferred for ease of use, with out the arms to line up for every lift.

My $.02

My opinion.

I have a two post sitting next to a 4 post in my shop. This is long term restoration work.

I only use the 4 post if the two post is full. I would tear it out today if I could replace it with another 2 post. Pretty much everything you would put a car on a lift for is blocked by the rails. If you are pulling the drivetrain the car sits too high for the average cherry picker especially if you lift it up enough for the legs of the cherry picker to go under the car.

They are great for storage and oil changes. For almost everything I put a car up in the air for they are sub-optimal. Exhaust work is a pain most of the time. Running new brake lines is always a hassle. Suspension, brakes, wheels are a mess. Yes I have the sliding center bridge with the hydro/pneumatic jack. It helps but they aren't cheap.

I am a two post enthusiast!

Also. I ALWAYS seem to hit my head on the rails of the 4 post. Like every damn time!

Jumper K. Balls wrote: They are great for storage and oil changes. For almost everything I put a car up in the air for they are sub-optimal. Exhaust work is a pain most of the time. Running new brake lines is always a hassle. Suspension, brakes, wheels are a mess. Yes I have the sliding center bridge with the hydro/pneumatic jack. It helps but they aren't cheap.

I have a 4-post (Bend-Pak HD9-ST) with the rolling bridge jacks, and I think that's overstating the case. Yes, a 2-post has better accessibility, but the 4-post is very usable.

For me, the biggest deciding factor in buying the 4-post was that it's a low narrower (externally) than a 2-post, and since I was putting it inside my garage, I needed that width in order to be able to park a second car next to the lift. The second factor was that I intended to use the lift for storage as well as service, and I live in earthquake country. :)

4-posts require less thickness of concrete than a 2-post. In fact, you don't have to bolt them down at all -- one cool thing you can do with a 4-post is to put casters on them and roll them around. My garage isn't really big enough to usefully take advantage of it, but the Bend-Pak has some very trick casters that attach to the posts with a single pin, then you lower the lift down onto them and it levers the posts off the ground.

Other differences, the 4-post can be used to do alignments, and it's a lot easier to attach drip trays underneath when you're parking something underneath a car that leaks oil.

All that said, if I had a large shop to put it in I'd probably have bought a 2-post.

My $.02 is 4 post are horrible for just about anything that is not directly under the engine. Transmission, axles , anything suspension, and anything on top of the engine bay is just made harder by the 4 post. As already stated they are great for storage and I use one for alignments but that's it.

The foundation work is really not that complicated. You don't have to have the entire floor redone, just the section that the lift mounts to. Our shop was modified for our two posts and each one has a 6X6 section cut out of the original pad and refilled with the proper concrete and rebar at the correct thickness. We have biannual inspections and we get a thumbs up everytime.

P.S. you WILL hit your head on your lift regardless of post count, it's a law of nature like gravity. With a four post it WILL BE MORE OFTEN.

I have a 4 post that came with the house. Been here since April.

Pros:
great for storage
Pull on/pull off, lining car up is REALLY easy
If needed, you can put the casters on and move it around, even out onto the driveway. I have not done this yet, but can see how it would be good if working on something height limited. I may havea friend come over at some point to do some floorpan welding on his Divco milk truck.
Not anchored into the floor at all
stupid fast and easy for oil changes
WAY less fear of it falling off

Cons:
I keep banging my berkin head into the ramps when its up
If you want to do suspension work, you really need a bridge jack (I dont have one.. yet)
Takes up space, but no door obstruction
Wouldnt be able to drop an engine out the bottom of a car very easially

I'll add if I think of more... I think the ultimate choice would be what kind of work you expect to do more of. Minor maintenice? 4 post. Major engine in and out overhaul? 2 post.

P.S. forum formatting sucks..

As far as banging heads on it, I find that using a rolling stool pretty much eliminates that problem.

95% will be oil changes and storage use other then finishing the hemi dart

Single post lifts take up almost no room. If you recess the cement pad you can hide it under a rug. The only thing they are not great for is transmission removal on a RWD car.

Off topic but still a great alternative, only need air to operate and rebuilt ones cost less than a grand.

4 post lift with a moving jack that rids inside the channels for another 400$ is basically the best of all worlds.

If I could only have one hoist, it would be a 4 post with two center lifts. Having said that, my shop has four two posts and one four post, because 90% of what we do is more convenient on a 2 poster. However, there really isn't much that can't be done on a 4 post with center lifts. Dropping an engine out the bottom is the only big no-no on a 4 post.

The place where a two post really sucks is if you don't have a flat, open bay in addition- try to work under the dash on a car if you don't have a load of room to move ahead or back, and its irritating as heck working around the posts, trying to keep the paint on the doors.

If money was no object, I'd get an in-ground 2-post lift. It's all the benefits of a 2-post lift, but it only sticks up a few inches when it's not in use. They start at something like $6-7K though, and installation is non-trivial. Pretty much the only you can't use it for is alignments.

In my 35+ years of turning wrenches I've worked under just about every kind of lift there is. The ideal shop would have both a four post with bridge jacks and a two post of some sort as well as enough open floor space that the lifts aren't in the way when you don't need one. Most of us in the real world have to make some kind of compromise.

You pretty much need a two post for cab lifts on pickup trucks and anything that requires cradle removal on a car. They're also easier when doing engine R&R although I've done them on a four post. For pretty much everything else I prefer a four post with trolley jacks. That's not a universally held opinion however.

I almost bought a four post lift on Bravenrace's endorsement, but I just couldn't imagine constantly having to walk around two of those four posts, plus the runners when it's down.

The portability of a 4 post is awesome. My dad has a 3,900 sq ft garage, and he can move it around or out of the way when necessary. The runways make a great workbench, and a couple air/hydraulic bottle jacks make it easy to lift whatever wheel you need lifted. Car storage is another plus. Even a 3,900 sq ft garage can get filled up quickly.

wearymicrobe wrote: 4 post lift with a moving jack that rids inside the channels for another 400$ is basically the best of all worlds.

+1. A few years ago, we got a 4 post with those.

I assume they work well.

The time I got them coincided with the time I stopped racing. So I really haven't done real work. But it seems like it will work well.

Still have to get rid of my 74 GTV race car.

akylekoz wrote: Single post lifts take up almost no room. If you recess the cement pad you can hide it under a rug. The only thing they are not great for is transmission removal on a RWD car. Off topic but still a great alternative, only need air to operate and rebuilt ones cost less than a grand.

Where??????

And how deep of a hole?

You really need to assess how you're going to use the lift. I went with a 4 post lift as I would've had to broken up my garage floor and poured footers for a 2 post, plus the larger posts, plus the PITA to store a car, etc, etc. I mostly use it for storage, which it excels at.

I aspire to building a detached garage where I have both types of lifts tho.

I'm very skeptical of how a lift that's outside in New England weather is going to hold up. Most of the hobby lifts aren't powder coated, they're painted and not primed very well. They're going to rust, ALOT if outside.

I looked into a bridge jack but came up with a solution that works just as well and cost me $50 shipped.

I bought a semi jack stand, that they use to hold semi trailers up with when not hooked to the tractor. It's height adjustable, goes to 52" I think. I lift up the car, put the jackstand under the rear diff or front subframe, than lower the lift down onto the jackstand.

That lifts that end of the car off my 4 post lift, I put my jackstands in place, then lower the lift down. Presto, wheels off the lift deck, properly supported with jackstands and I didn't pay hundreds of dollars.

It's my understanding the old single post lifts run into environmental issues what with having a bigass hydraulic cylinder in a hole in the ground, probably doesn't apply for personal use, but something to be aware of.