Lift wanted. Low ceiling. What do I want?

I want a lift.  I'm tired of jacking up the car and barely being able to crawl under it.

I *think* I want a max jax.  However, they are like $3500 now.  I can get a 4 post for that much or even a low lift 2 post.

So, assuming I have 9 foot tall ceilings, what lift do I want?

Scissor lifts are out because I would need to crawl in from the front or back and it wouldn't help to change a transmission.  

I plan to use this lift to help with Trans/  engine swaps, regular maintenance, etc.

If yall got a used max jax, I'd buy it from you as well!

I have a MaxJax in a smaller shop with an 8' ceiling.  I'm really happy with it.  The taller the vehicle, the less I can raise it, but even an Expedition at 18" off the ground is way easier with the lift than with a jack and stands.  I also like the ability to unbolt it from the floor and move it out of the way.  We're about to paint rockers after rust repair on an RX8, and we'll use the lift to get it high up on jack stands, then we'll unbolt the lifts and roll them out of the way to paint.

With my 8' ceiling I can't get any value out of any more lift.  Just about any sedan barely fits at the top position of 48".  With a 9' ceiling with a taller lift, I still wouldn't be able to stand upright, and I'm only 5'4".  

I bought mine several years ago at $2K, and I'd still have no problem spending $3.5K for one not that I've used it a lot.  The new one also has 7000 lb capacity vs. the 6000 lb on mine, and that's a useful difference for bigger vehicles.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

I have the MaxJax M6. Mine is mounted outside my shop, and I pull it when not in use and store it in the shop. I like it. It beats the hell out of jacks and jack stands. Being able to stand and do a brake job is worth it's weight in gold. I have had it loaded close to the maximum weight.

If you go that route. Inspect your concrete every time you use it. My driveway failed after a couple of years and cracked right through the lag holes. I have just dug that out a repoured it 6" thick with lots of steel. 

Another MaxJax owner here. While I like it plenty for my low ceilings I feel the current price tag is insanely high. If I were deciding again and couldn't find a used Maxjax I'd probably go with a low rise two post.

How big is your garage?  I ended up with scissor lifts partly because I have a 1-bay wide garage.  A Max Jack wouldn't be far enough apart to work. Plus, the posts would be against the walls, thus making access around the car a PITA at best.   I decided I wasn't going to have to drop transmissions often enough. 

A 4-post has similar spacial issues. If I had a multi-bay garage dedicated for parking, one might be useful to have. But for service, no.  

There is this style of scissor lift that gives better center access.  None of these lifts are "cheap" anymore.  This one seems so cheap it practically screams "Scam!"

That same lift is over $4K from Home Depot or Northern Tool. 

wvumtnbkr said:

So, assuming I have 9 foot tall ceilings, what lift do I want?

How wide is the garage?  All lifts other than a scissor are going to involve putting posts on the side of the car.  As Ian F says, with a 1 car garage that's a big problem.  With a 2 car garage it's less of a problem, but you need to measure out the space.  IMHO the way to do this is to look up the specs on the lift you're thinking of, outline it on the floor with tape, and then stack up some boxes to simulate posts and try driving cars in there.  Make sure you can open the doors, get in/out, etc with the posts there.

When you say you want to change transmissions, are we talking transverse mount or longitudinal?  Transverse mount is restrictive in terms of which lifts will work, you pretty much need a 2-post for that.  Longitudinal is much less restrictive.

BTW, if you're working on small cars (Miatas, say), then 9 feet is actually a pretty decent height.  I park an FD underneath my Miata using a 4-post with a 9'3" ceiling. 

As I see it, they stack up like this:

Standard 2 post:  the best overall for service (which is why every repair shop you look at will be mostly 2-posts), but requires the most width (may be too wide to put in a 2-car garage if you want to keep using both bays) and places the highest demands on your concrete.  Seems to be one of the least expensive these days

MaxJack:  like a regular 2-post but fixes the width problem at the expensive of height.  It's narrower overall than most normal 2-posts, and the fact that the posts can be unbolted and wheeled around means that even if it's in the way, it's not permanently in the way.

4 post:  By itself it's very limited for service (can't take the wheels off).  It's a bit more expensive than the 2-post and requires more front/back room, but less width.  You can fit one in a single bay of most 2 car garages and still use the other bay for normal parking.  One unique benefit of the 4-post is that you can do alignments with the car in the air.

4 post with rolling bridge jacks:  Adds back most of the service options (can do basically everything except dropping subframes), but basically doubles the cost of the 4 post.  This is what I have, but I bought it 7 or 8 years ago before prices went nuts.

Scissor:  has similar height limits to the maxjack, but totally fixes the width problem.  Somewhat limits access to the center of the car, but folks I know who have them don't find that to be a huge issue.  Kind of annoying in that you have to drive over it all the time, but if you want to invest in some concrete work you can recess it into the floor to solve that.

QuickJack:  not really a lift, think of this as a convenient way to get a car up onto a set of tall-but-really-stable jackstands with minimal effort.  Also, unlike all of the other options above, this is portable and you can bring it to the track with you if you want.

I owned a MaxJax and loved it, but there are some important things to consider, at least with this particular two point lift.

A short wheelbase car like a Miata requires a fairly wide garage space. For a car with a short wheel base, the posts need to be spaced fairly far apart in order for the arms to clear the insides of the tires when you are swinging them into position.

For a longer wheelbase, the posts need to be closer together so that the extended arms can reach the vehicle's jacking points. You can sort of visualize that in this photo (although the arms are fully retracted here):

With the MaxJax set up to lift my Miata / 911 / Z3 / Accord sedan, I couldn't lift my four door Tacoma.

Of course, adding five more alternative anchor points on one side (or maybe even just three) makes this problem go away if you have the room, and the beauty of the MaxJax is that the whole thing can be knocked down and moved to the corner of the shop in less than fifteen minutes.

In short: You can lift a long vehicle in a narrow garage, but you need a wide garage to lift a short vehicle.

Here's what the MaxJax looks like when you knock it down and store it in the corner. The two posts are standing up against the wall next to it. That takes up about another 18"x36" section of space along the wall.

Anybody wanna sell a max jax?

Really great summary from codrus. I have a four post, and it has its limits. With the bridge jack it gets around some of them but FWD engine and transmission work isn't easy and the biggest downside for me. I just bought a 2 post and will assess if I still want to keep the 4post after I do some work on it. 

I think you are about the perfect use case for the maxjax based on what you've posted. Barring you wanting to take up more room with a 8-9k baseplate 2 post and lose the portability.

Max jack sounds like your answer if you can afford the width. 

I have a quick jack for my 8ft ceiling garage, and I'm quite happy with it. Way better then Jack stands. Great access to the center of the car. And wheels/brakes/suspension. Doesn't aid in pulling a motor like a max jack can. 

I don't think I could park 2 cars in my 22 ft wide garage with a max jack in place. And I have a car up on the quick jack about 50% of the time and store a car in the other bay. 

I have a 2 car garage.  Only the racecar lives in it right now.  The racecar goes away in 8 days.  

Width won't be an issue.  I want the lift so I can comfortably work on my project car and do regular maintenance on our dailies.

It really sounds like the max jax is what I'm after.  Now, if I could find one for around 2k or 2500$, I'd be in business!

I have a MaxJax as well but I think I paid like $2200 or something. They are crazy now. I have lifted everything from as my small as my vintage Formula Ford to a Tundra. Note I didn't ever try to pick the Tundra up more than a couple of feet. It was too long for the garage bay. Also helpful to pull the tub off the TR6 during the restoration.  To pick the FF I use a pair of small steel channels to span the lift arms. 
 

The right chair is pivotal. I use a small (but well built) rolling table with a HF trans jack on it which is just the right height to pull transmissions. 
 

Once you go lift you will never go back. 

I want an in floor scissor- I think it's probably worth the install pain. garage journal has a huge thread on them. 
 

Alibaba in floor lift

In reply to Teh E36 M3 :

Agreed. My plan is instead of recessing the lift, I'll just raise up the floor around it.  Especially since I have two. The one in the back of the garage will be fixed and I'll mount the pump unit on a wall.  The second one I'll leave an opening in the raised floor so I can roll the lift out into my driveway when I need to work on a car that is too large to work on comfortably in my garage. 

Ha- nice- the lift I linked requires 11" recess, so i couldn't pull off the rise but I like the thought process. 

Start looking around at tool sites. I got my Max Jack from Wrenchers for $4000 delivered to my door. This included a reclining creeper, 4"and 6" extensions also a tall neck oil change bucket. 

I know there were a few other things as well just can't remember off the top of my head. Shipping was free if it went to a facility. It cost me $100 to get it delivered to my house. With all the extras it meant the lift cost about $2700 which was still cheaper than the $3500 every other place I could find wanted for just the lift.

Bought it last year as I didn't hesitate when I saw that deal. Still sitting boxed up and covered until I finish insulating and sheetrocking the garage. Which still has some stuff to be cleared out of it.

Working keeps getting in my way of getting it done. Plus a emotionally high maintenance wife who thinks any free time I have needs to be spent with her. Damn first world problems I tell you. 

Any issues with residential garage floors and the maxjax?

Only thing I can think of is it needs to be a minimum of 4" thick. 6" would be ideal for a 7500 pound rated lift. on the lift sights you can look at their spec book on what they require as far as thickness of floor.

In reply to yupididit :

Just keep an eye on the concrete. I drilled test holes and mine was over 4". It still failed after about 3 years. It cracked right through the anchor holes. When I broke it out to replace it, it was very poorly poured. There was a lot of dirt mixed in with the concrete and no steel, just fiber concrete. I went back 6" with lots of steel. 

Toyman! said:

In reply to yupididit :

Just keep an eye on the concrete. I drilled test holes and mine was over 4". It still failed after about 3 years. It cracked right through the anchor holes. When I broke it out to replace it, it was very poorly poured. There was a lot of dirt mixed in with the concrete and no steel, just fiber concrete. I went back 6" with lots of steel. 

It sounds like you lived on the edge for quite a while without even knowing it.  

Max Jack says concrete should be minimum 4.25" thick 3000 lb concrete.  (Many residential slabs are 3.5" thick 2500 lb concrete)

But they ALSO say anchors should be drilled 5" deep without drilling through the concrete  

Max Jack concrete requirements

You can get a proper 2 post baseplate style lift for less than a Maxjack if you are OK with a permanent installation.  The shortest ones seem to like about 9'6" to the ceiling.

Options for the top of the posts include the following:

• Setting them up between your joists/trusses
• Cut through the drywall and set between the joints/trusses
• Frame out a box in your ceiling for the posts, drywall it.  If you do it cool, you can do a big enough box to get the center of the vehicle up in it, handy if you primarily work on pickups and passenger cars
• Have a talented fabricator cut down the top of the posts and reweld them
• If you know the right people, Challenger Lifts will build you a custom low clearance lift, just gotta ask.  But you will pay for it.  

In reply to A 401 CJ :

Maybe. The lift never moved. Even after the crack appeared it was solid though I didn't put a car on it to test it.

I believe my son cracked it when his Jeep slipped off the 4" high riser pads and landed on the arms. He had lifted it and gave it a shake to see if it was solid. It was just barely sitting on one of the pads and fell. The shock was more than the slab could stand. I noticed the crack later that week. 

It's now sitting on 6" of 4000 psi concrete with 1/2" rebar. I won't have to worry about that again. 

Interestingly enough, my RV hasn't cracked the slabs yet. It tips the scales at 32k pounds. 

I've got a QuickJack to go with my real lift. I don't think a lot of people realize how tall they can go - here's a comparison between the smallest 3500 and a jackstand at the same lift height. The larger sizes can lift 3.5-4" higher. The stability difference is dramatic as well as the setup speed when compared to jackstands. 

The QJ gets high enough to work underneath the car easily from a creeper - if you went any higher, you'd have to go high enough that you could get underneath on a rolling stool. For working on corners (suspension/brake work), I sit on a big wheeled gardening stool that I bought for $10.

I store it under a car or a workbench when I'm not using it, and when I'm at a high speed track I'll often put the car up in the air between every session so I can tweak/work on it. It doesn't require a special concrete pad and it can be powered by the 12v battery in the car.