Hello all, in advance thanks for your opinions, you've all helped me throughout the years here!

I've got this jack from O'Reilly within the past year and have had issues using it since new. If on flat ground it won't lift the car from the center jack point's high enough to support the vehicle on my jack stands.
https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/a.../ford/explorer

I paid $100 for the jack in hopes of upping my at home maintenance game which it has, but I've had to do some jerry-rigging with pieces of assorted wood under the lift.

Is this safe? Is there a better way to raise the height? I can barely get it to above one click on my jack stands and these are your standard automotive jack stands. Does anyone any dimensions or depth of plywood I should be looking at?

I've got my bumper cover in great shape, I don't want to bend that plastic moulding underneath the bumper cover as well.


Respectfully,
A 05 Tl owner.

 

You can also use a hockey puck to help it reach higher.

 

Hmm well if that's one of the safe things, it won't get me to far. My life is worth dishing out more for a better jack then.

 

Yeah other than putting a block of wood or something on it, no it's not going to go up any higher. Most 1.5 ton jacks don’t have that high of a range. So you’d have to keep doing what your doing with that jack or get a 2 1/4 or 2 1/2 ton jack for more height. From the jacks I’ve used, most 3 ton (or bigger) are too big to fit under the front of TL’s if your lowered at all. And aren’t necessary if your TL is all your using it for anyway. Adding a block of wood isn’t the most stable or safest thing. So if you are having to do that a lot I’d sell the jack you have and get a new jack with a higher lift range. $100-$150 is definitely worth it to not be stuck under a car

 

Get a new jack, one that has at least 18" lift is safest bet.

A jack is used to do a chore, don't make the chore any harder than it needs to be

 

Thanks everyone, you settled it. Off to buy another BETTER jack!

 

And ALWAYS use jack stands!!!!

 

I was gonna say, look at the min AND max height...there are some pretty impressive ones that go from 3 to 21"!

 

Yep, agree with this, 18" minimum...

 

Costco has an aluminium jack. Heard good things about it.

 

the hybrid?
I bought one and returned it, it was heavy and didn't slide under my last TL without using blocks of wood.

 

The Arcan 3ton aluminium jack.

 

Get the Costco 3 ton low profile jack or the Barbour freight 3ton steel jack. I use them to lift my suv no problems

 

Wow, as of today, the Harbor Freight 3-ton low profile, rapid pump unit is only $86 shipped to my zip code. Pretty great reviews. I may grab that one now. I have a low profile jack from Menards which works fine, but it takes 12 pumps to lift the TL...

https://www.harborfreight.com/3-ton-...ump-61253.html

 

give me me a thumbs up if you like it lol. I have that in my garage and use it very often to work on the crv and pilot

 

I have 2 of those, NFN. I store them standing up and use the front part as a handle to save floor space.
Very heavy duty, they start super low and go super high.

 

Is this jack similar to the Arcan 3 ton aluminium jack from costco?

 

That's the hybrid jack, aluminum AND steel. It was heavy and didn't fit under my TL and S2000 without first driving onto blocks of wood. So I returned it.

 

I ended up passing on the Costco one and got a Powerfist 3.5ton. Doesn't go super low, (4-21"). But she's a beast.

 

powerfist was my nickname all through college. good choice.

 

hopefully you have small hands......for her sake!

 

oh no! i wasn't the one doing the fisting! ew!

 

Trying to give us all jack envy? Shame on you

 

Funny story, I bought the first one to go along with my original 2 or 2.5 ton one...then, I accidentally messed up the purging of air on that 3 ton I had bought and thought I broke it. So I bought another before reading up on how to properly maintain it. Fixed that one and then had 3 functional jacks. I ended up leaving the smaller one to my neighbor when I got divorced.

 

And don't forget: You can by a Harbor Freight gift card from one of the gift card resellers for an additional 10%-15% savings...

 

that jack is a no brainer.

 

Great jack!! Works for the TL and Pilot.

 

ask her

 

why wouldn't you buy this from harbor freight with a 20% off coupon it will cost you same price...

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-ton-...ump-68056.html

I would say buy another one, 2 jacks always are more helpful especially if you want to lift the wheel to relieve some tension from the bushings etc....

I have been using the same exact one from HF for about 2 yrs now and it is absolutely an amazing product...

Sandan

 

It's back on sale again.. I haven't followed this particular item, but I assume it's probably "on sale" every other week?

 

This is the good one.

https://m.harborfreight.com/2-ton-lo...ump-60678.html

 

Another +1 for this jack. Great price, low enough for most standard suspension sport cars, good strength and height. Only downside is it is heavy as f*ck. I have to carry it up a flight of stairs from the basement every time lol, its a good workout though.

I also have a cheapie auto zone one. I dont know how I got so far with that, but it doesnt lift the TL. It was enough for a small sports car like an rx7. I want to get an aluminum one for little stuff.

 

100 lbs , so pretty heavy. But 2.625 min clearance.

 

that would suck for me...I'd have to ask my mom to come outside and give me a hand to just get it into position under the car.

 

I knew it was only a matter of time before someone's mother got dragged into this discussion

 

you know me too well, my friend.

 

Just picked up a $200 HF giftcard for $160.60 (19.7% off). I'll be ready next time that jack goes on sale

 

Damn, nice, man!
Funny but if you look at it like that, it's reverse loan sharking...they pay you 20% interest to have your money ahead of time in the hopes that a percentage of the population that buys the gift cards will forget to use them or lose them!

 

Back on sale again for $80, coupon code: 14490390

Gift card balance : $0

 

you are on top of your game, man!
thanks for sharing.
just used one of mine last night, actually...
the things are a beast.