Lift Owners - Your Thoughts

[TX63CONV]

I am thinking about purchasing a lift for the garage at my new house. My garage is 19x19 inside the walls with just shy of 12’ ceilings. There is an additional alcove of about 10x5 that I plan to build a workbench and have my tool chest, etc.

My purpose is to store my driver on the lift while I work on my new project. My question for those who have lifts is: how much room do you think I will have if I angle the rear end of the project car under the lift? Would I have enough room to pull the motor and work on the engine bay? The house is on a hill so unfortunately, I can’t roll the car out into the driveway for things like this. Another question would be, with the driver up in the air and the project on wheel dollies, could I potentially rotate the car 360 degrees by backing it into the space under the lift, turning it, backing it, turning it etc? I know this is not ideal but trying to avoid renting storage space.

I have seen lifts in some people’s garages but have not really studied them for how much room is there.

Thanks

 

[ket-tek]

Asking if you will be able to rotate a car around on dollies doesn't do much good without knowing what car it is. An MG, a Hatchback Civic, a Mini Cooper, yeah most likely. Anything larger in a 19x19 is going to be unlikely to spin 360 especially if you have lift posts in the way.

 

[John in OH]

And how many posts .... two or four??

 

[TX63CONV]

4 post lift.

69 mustang. I really dont NEED to rotate 360 degrees but wondering if it is possible to angle the car under the lift enough to pull the motor.

 

[bad94sup]

4 post lift.

69 mustang. I really dont NEED to rotate 360 degrees but wondering if it is possible to angle the car under the lift enough to pull the motor.

Hmm. The 4 post by itself shouldn't take up too much real estate which is nice. Assuming you'll be able to leverage most of the 19' width you have and assuming you would be able to get by the front posts I think you should have enough to get under the engine. Maybe snap a pic of the garage to help us visualize. For arguments sake, let's assume your 4 post will be ~118" wide. For comparisons sake, Greg's Smith Direct Lift pro park 8S is 115" side with the motor.

 

[ryno]

i think you'd be able to rotate a mustang under the lift if you had car dollies or it was on jacks.

 

[Milton Shaw]

I would think just the opposite. Put the car to work on up on the lift, when through with it raise it and drive the daily driver under it. That way you could use cherry picker to engine swap, get under car for trans /bell housing work and. When quitting for the day raise it and park good car under it. No dollies needed. The way you are suggesting you would have to move the engineless car out, lower the driver and then push the other one in.
Use the lift to work on and the floor to park on.

 

[countryroad82]

I would think just the opposite. Put the car to work on up on the lift, when through with it raise it and drive the daily driver under it. That way you could use cherry picker to engine swap, get under car for trans /bell housing work and. When quitting for the day raise it and park good car under it. No dollies needed. The way you are suggesting you would have to move the engineless car out, lower the driver and then push the other one in.
Use the lift to work on and the floor to park on.

Ditto

 

[TX63CONV]

I would think just the opposite. Put the car to work on up on the lift, when through with it raise it and drive the daily driver under it. That way you could use cherry picker to engine swap, get under car for trans /bell housing work and. When quitting for the day raise it and park good car under it. No dollies needed. The way you are suggesting you would have to move the engineless car out, lower the driver and then push the other one in.
Use the lift to work on and the floor to park on.

The one on the lift would be a weekend cruiser, not daily driver. My wife lost her garage space long ago.

I agree with everything you said except for the issue of my driveway slope. I guess I could chock my cherry picker but not sure i would be able to get it back into the garage...I envision it rolling down the driveway and into the alley.

 

[Stuart in MN]

Here's a photo from the Bendpak website, note how the car on the lift is longer than the distance between the front and rear posts.

This was used just as an example, other brands will be similar. This makes it tricky to maneuver a car underneath a lift unless it's pretty small. I have a four post lift in my garage, in stall 'A'; I can back a car into stall 'B' next to it and parallel park underneath the lift, but that's with an older 3 series BMW that's not very long (and it's REALLY tight - you have to be a good parallel parker. )