So with the new lift installation completed last night I guess I will introduce the latest addition to my humble little shop.
Wanting to step up to a 12k pound lift from my previous Ammco 10k pound lift was not a super high priority as the Ammco lift did everything I needed it to and threw at it over nearly 15-years of ownership. However, as I mentioned earlier, with heavier trucks I worried about those rear arms being overloaded with the longer trucks being rear biased. The second issue was finding a lift that would meet all of my requirements as far as being able to go low enough to grab the majority of the vehicles I work on yet still be able to support the weight of the heavier ones.
After much research and back and forth with numerous questions I was impressed with Bendpak's willingness to answer my questions to my satisfaction. I know there are reviews for so many manufacturers and most all have pro's and con's associated with them so one clear hands down winner is rather subjective. Although I am not a 2-post lift virgin having owned one for nearly 15 years now, I wanted to see what was being heavily used in the automotive repair shops in my area and ask a few of them for their likes and dislikes as far as various features.
Several of the businesses that I talked with specialize in light duty pickup trucks ranging up to the 1-ton duallies and everything down to full-size SUV's and many of them had the standard profile arms and the mechanics and shop owners really liked them. Then a couple of businesses work on a wide range of vehicles like I do, but they have low profile 7k-10k lifts for the vast majority of their work and one or two 10k or 12k for the larger pickup trucks so they have different lifts for different vehicles. Not something that is really an option for me so finding one that will do all and still offer the safety and other features I was wanting led me to the Bendpak 12APX lift.
It has the triple telescoping arms front and rear that allow the option of loading heavier trucks in the symmetrical configuration yet still allow enough ground clearance to swing the arms under say a small to mid-size sedan and load onto the lift in the asymmetrical configuration. I also wanted wider spaced columns to allow for a bit more drive-thru clearance and allow me to open doors and not hit mirrors as easily as I did on my Ammco lift, which was a bit on the tight side.
When I finally decided on a model and reached out to ensure the lift was in stock I was told about 5-7 business days once the order is placed to deliver it. I reached out to my cousin to see if I could have it delivered to his repair shop as he has a forklift to unload it. With a destination arranged, I placed the order. I was sent an email confirmation stating the order was placed with the warehouse, this was on a Tuesday, two weeks before the wife and I were to leave on vacation so I was thinking it would be delivered approx. Tuesday or Wednesday before we left for vacation, perfect.
The next day (Wednesday) I recieved another email stating the warehouse had pulled the order it was shipping that day with an approx. delivery date of the following Tuesday but the driver would call 24-hours before delivering to confirm. I called my cousin to let him know it would probably be the following Tuesday and he said he'd text me when it arrived and I could come and get it.
On Thursday, only 2-days after placing the order, I was heading home when I received a text from my cousin's son with a picture showing it sitting on their forklift stating "looks like it arrived early". Holy ****, less than 24-hours after leaving the warehouse in California it arrived.
I hauled *** home, hooked up my utility trailer and ran to his shop to get it.
Fortunately I only had about a mile to go from my cousin's shop to my home because I don't think this loading configuration would have been OSHA approved.
I backed the trailer into the shop and immediately began unboxing so I could get it on the floor before we left for vacation. I have to say, the packing was impressive. I remember my Ammco lift coming much the same way as far as being bolted together using a welded fixture to mount the top of one column and the base of the other, then the same at the other end, but my Ammco was just shrink wrapped and the rest of the components came on a separate pallet.
This thing was all contained on one skid, banded together with everything intact. The other thing I noticed right away was the 1/4" plywood along the lengths of the columns to avoid scratches and damage. At first I was worried because maybe the plywood would have scratched the powder coating on the columns, but once I removed the plywood from the exterior, I noticed they also had a couple of wraps per linear foot of shrink wrap on the columns themselves before securing the plywood. This extra step protected the finish perfectly. I know cosmetics aren't the biggest reason we buy lifts, but I still want them to look good after years of service and really don't want to put something in my shop that was all scratched or dinged up right from the beginning. When I sold my Ammco, the guy was impressed it looked as good as it did for being nearly 15-years old. I explained it wasn't used dozens of times a day like I'm sure his were, but he assured me that it was more than that and he could tell it was well cared for regardless how much or how little it was used. That made me feel good knowing it was recognized and would be appreciated by the new owner.
The height adapters on this lift are solid vs. the hollow ones for my Ammco 10k pound lift. These are heavy and not something I want to drop on my foot when handling. This lift came with the frame style cradles but I also ordered the telescoping threaded flat pads as I feel those do a better job of being able to adjust height front to rear on the vast majority of the vehicles I work on when the height is between the sizes of the solid adapters.
This lift also came with a 5 HP pump assembly vs. the 2 HP on my Ammco. In addition the cylinders are larger on this lift, being a 12k pound lift. I knew right away that this lift will be a bit slower having to move more fluid, but I didn't buy it for the speed so time will tell how much slower it is.
Everything else was packaged just as well and sorted very neatly. Personally, I feel a lot can be said about the pride taken by a manufacturere of anything in how they package their product. If they don't have pride in the product, it will show in how it's packaged for delivery. This was very well packed right down to each nut and bolt. Another thing I noticed was the size of the equalizing cables compared to my 10k pound lift.
The arms are massive as the innermost sliding section is the size of the outer tube on my last lift.
The overhead beam was also thicker material and much heavier with larger cable sheaves.
The shrink wrap removed and ready to lift off the trailer.
The arms didn't want to come out of the channel so I would have to unload the columns first, then slide the arms out the top of each column. This actually worked out well because I used the placement of the arms in each column as ballast to adjust as I was strapping each column to lift off the trailer with my engine hoist. I was doing this alone and the last thing I wanted to do was injure myself and prove my wife right that I needed help.
Stay tuned for more pictures.
