Anyone out there have a lift in their garage? Am looking for any suggestions you might have on manufacturer/brand. Need to create some space. Thanks for any advice or experience you might have.

 

I have the 4 post lift by Revolution which is made by Rotary and I am very happy with it

 

Make sure you have enough ceiling height. I think my ceiling is around 12 feet

 

I've been happy with Backyard Buddy.

 

I have a couple Eagle Lifts and they are top notch. I also have a Backyard Buddy and 2 others. I can tell you without reservation that the Eagle lifts are nicer, more heavy duty, easier to use, assemble, move, etc.

I suggest you get the caster set that allows the lift to be rolled around if you have any plans of ever moving it around at your house. I often roll mine outside into the street to do undercarriage pressure washing and detailing. FWIW, I also bought the Jack Tray accessory and have NEVER used it, however the aluminum ramp upgrade is nice to have. $.02

 

I have an older AMMCO lift in my garage. It's ANSI and OSHA approved and is 10K # capable. I love it! It really depends on the type of work you plan to do. If you can, get your car on a lift at someone's house and do an oil change, and other routine maintenance. I can't imagine NOT having a twin post lift. That said, I do a LOT of my own work, and can foresee doing my own clutch replacement or tranny pull if it is needed... Not sure you can do these jobs as easy with a drive on lift.

Mike

 

Thanks very much for the guidance. I'll will check out some of these manufacturers.

My ceiling height is only a little more than 9ft, about 112 inches. However, the cars I intend to stack up on the lift, and under the lift, will only total about 107 inches.

Can anyone tell me how much clearance is required between the top of the car on the floor and the bottom of their lift assembly? If it is only a few inches, I think I can pull this off without building another garage. If I need 6-12 inches between the two stacked cars, I am going to need to go with plan B.

 

Does anyone know what height ceiling a guy should have?

 

If you look at the picture I've attached you can see my overhead clearance is not as high as I would like due to the position of the garage door opener and the beam it is attached to. However, by backing the top car onto the ramp, the garage doors are over the hood and easily clear. Luckily, the garage is deep enough to allow me to back the car in far enough so the top of the roof is in past the beam.

To figure how much overhead clearance you need, you measure the height of the lower car and choose the lock height on the lift that will just clear it, add 6" for the thickness of the ramp and lock travel and then add the height of the upper car. In my case the TT is 50" so I use the 51 1/2" lock height on the lift and the S2000 is 51" .....so, 51 1/2 +6+51= 108 1/2" needed. The height to the bottom of the garage door opener is 112" which clears easily whereas the height to the bottom of the garage door when open is only 100"...however since this is over the hood of the S2000 there is a lot of room.

 

You need to go to plan B, or plan C which would be an extremely low profile car as one of the vehicles. My ceiling height is 115" and I was unable to make anything work out BC in addition to all the space requirements mentioned above, there is a certain minimum amount of space needed for your garage door and tracks at the ceiling, assuming you have a door as pictured just above this post. Even with the torsion drive type of lift assembly (which eliminates the center track and the motor in the middle with the worm-drive gear) I still couldn't find enough room to get anything worthwhile over my 50 " 996 turbo.

 

I think you may have some height issues. Revolution lift used to have a ceiling height calculator on their site. I also purchased the jack trays and never use them.

 

Thanks guys, very helpful. I hadn't thought about the fact that the lift manufacturers have preset locking points. That will limit my options considerably. I am willing to forget about a garage door opener, and think that the strategy of backing the car in will solve problems because that bay on my garage is pretty deep. I will check out the Revolution site to see if the calculator is still there. This is going to be challenging...

 

Great setup and collection!

 

I'm shopping for a lift, too. My ceiling height is 9' 4". I just found this on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/10-K-...spagenameZWDVW

Is there a sponsor around here who consults on this stuff?

 

Also, are there any issues in car storage w/ 4-post vs 2-post?