How to Safely Lift a Car with a Floor Jack and Jack Stands (Beginner Guide)
About this video
An ASE certified mechanic shows how to safely raise a vehicle with a floor jack and support it on jack stands. This is the first thing you should learn before any brake job, oil change, tire rotation, or suspension work. More home mechanics are injured by a car falling than by any tool, and almost all of it comes from the same handful of mistakes. This is a universal guide that applies to almost any car, truck, or SUV.
WHAT WE COVER Finding the correct factory jack points and pinch welds Reading the owner manual lift point diagram and what the notches mean Choosing a flat, hard, level surface and why a driveway slope or gravel is dangerous Chocking the wheels and setting the parking brake before you lift Floor jack versus scissor jack versus bottle jack, and their limits Correct jack stand placement and always using them in pairs Setting the vehicle down onto the stands and shaking the car to test stability Lifting on a unibody car versus a body on frame truck Why you never work under a car held only by a jack Lowering the vehicle safely and in the right order
MISTAKES TO AVOID Lifting on plastic body panels, the oil pan, or a suspension control arm Using a rusted, bent, or undersized jack or stand Working on soft asphalt on a hot day Leaving the transmission in Neutral without chocks Skipping jack stands for a quick job
The lift point locations shown apply to the 2015-2023 Jeep Renegade (first generation BU, including the 2019 facelift) and its platform sister the Fiat 500X, but the technique and safety rules apply to every make and model, from the Jeep Compass, Cherokee, Wrangler, and Grand Cherokee to Honda, Toyota, Ford, Chevy, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz.
Popular searches this video answers: how to jack up a car, where to place jack stands, how to use a floor jack, car jack points, how to lift a car safely, jack stand placement, is it safe to work under a car on jack stands, how to lift a car for oil change.
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