Edit: I had the jack for about 3 weeks, used it to lift my friends Honda CRV, not a heavy car by any means. I was left with my jack bleeding oil all across the pavement. The jack still worked as I describe below, held the car up for lengthy amounts of time along with jack stands, and didn't fail otherwise. Amazon sent UPS the next day to pick up the jack and the new one is on its way. I'm sure it was just a manufacturer defect. I will post more later, but the 5 star rating is staying unless this happens again. 5/9/13
Edit 2: The new jack arrived promptly and has been working great for over a year now. No leaks, no issues. I think the first jack was just defective. Amazon is always quick to fix any errors, and my new jack is always happy to raise up cars. Keeping the 5 star rating. Overall, a well worth it purchase. 9/3/14
Edit 3: I have now added a crossbeam adapter to this jack. It is basically a steel tube with two jack pads that can be raised or lowered. What this does it increase the lift range by about 8 inches, and lift from two different points at once (say the side of the car, or the rear axle). I did have to modify the cross beam to fit the hole in the jack, but it works fine now. I bought this at Harbor Freight Tools for $30 after 25% coupon. 11/10/14
This jack is pretty amazing. I'm just a home mechanic that does his own auto work instead of feeding money to the local shops that tend to overcharge and provide sub par work. By this, I mean some shops that do oil changes have been lazy and forgotten to tighten the drain plug, so I got home and nearly blew my engine since it was out of oil. Last time I do that for the special $20 rate.
I had previously bought a Harbor Freight jack, a 2.5 ton low profile, high lift jack for around $75 with coupon, along with a set of 3 ton jack stands for $16. I used this for about a month, working on my civic and family's odyssey with little problems. It was a good jack and didn't disappoint me. It was an all steel, nearly 80 pound beast that had pretty incredible reach for a jack, along with low ground clearance at 2.75'' and lift range of 21''. The only concern I had was reliability, as seeing reviews were mixed. I decided to spend a bit more money and buy this jack.
This jack is simply amazing. Even though the box says "Made in China", it seems like a good ol' USA jack at heart. It is primarily aluminum on the construction, with steel on the lift arm mechanism for strength. The weight was modest, at 58 pounds (I checked), and the two handles are good for lugging around, since jacks are otherwise awkward to carry. I checked the statistics that were presented on amazon and was pleasantly surprised. My measurements were as follows:
Minimum height: 3 7/8'', less than the claimed 4'' height.
Max Height: 18 1/2'', greater than the claimed 18'' height
# full pumps to max: 5 1/3, just a tad over the claimed 5 pumps
Also has a safety mechanism to prevent overloading, and a non-complicated air purge system. The jack came with an abundance of lesser quality grease applied liberally, which I cleaned up to leave the nice finish in tact. The harbor freight jack worked as quoted on their website, except the rapid pump 3 1/2 pumps to max. I never got anywhere near that number, even after purging the air, though it didn't really matter when I was jacking up various cars.
The jack pad works great, has a 360 degree rotation (though not sure what good it does), free rolling wheels that don't bind, and a removable handle that is good for breaking loose bolts as a breaker bar/extension. Materials look quality, the bolts were all tight out of the box, and I feel good to own this jack (I was always given concerning looks from family with the Harbor Freight jack, guess people have had bad instances with them, though all the tools I've bought have been on par with the competition at a discounted price. One note is that I do replace any grease within a Harbor Freight product with high quality lithium grease.
I also pair this jack with 2 sets of Craftsman 3 ton/pair jack hi-lift stand. They are tall, at 13 7/8'' at their lowest, but 21'' at max. For most work, it is nice having tall jack stands to limit the amount of jack stand arm that is out of the stand. Hope people get what I'm trying to say here.
I tested this jack on our family scion xb. It lifts the front end to the max 18 1/2'', enough for the jack stands to slide under the jack points on the side with a couple of inches to spare. I then jacked under each suspension piece the full 18 1/2'' and raise the jack stands to 3/4 their full height. Done on each corner, the car can be up in the air by 16-17'' easy, plenty of space for anyone reasonably sized to work under. Just the front half jacked up on stands, the front of the car was 27'' off the ground. Plenty for any kind of front end work. The tires were off the ground by a good 5-6 inches, overkill for most people.
I've stated this at least 4 times, but this jack is awesome and performs like a jack should. It instills confidence in the user, and has such good control for lowering a car super slow onto jack stands or back to the ground. By no means is this a racing jack, with 58 pounds, it is light enough to lug around if need be with handles that are awesome, but compared to aluminum counterparts, it is hefty.
This jack is what I like to call cheap insurance. It will raise up your car with confidence and not drop it part way through, and if you like, will hold up your car (along with jack stands of course) without any worries. Your life is worth more than the premium for this jack.
Many of you may say that Harbor Freight sells a comparable jack (the one I bought probably) for half the price. Yes, the jack from HF was good, but it was heavy and bulky. The lower saddle height was nice, though i don't know very many people with under 4'' of ground clearance (even so, a scissor jack can lift the side of the car enough to get this jack under if need be). If extra height is needed, a small block of wood on the saddle will do, though 18'' is plenty for most applications. I did my exhaust on my car with under 12'' of clearance before I had either of these jacks or high lift jack stands, so anything is an upgrade.
All in all, I probably spent a tad over $210 for a great jack and 2 sets of quality jack stands. Guys, its well worth it and this is a great jack for the price (figure in tax into the price too). If you have any doubts, I will stand behind this jack until it decides to quit on me, which will be after countless years of oil changes and maintenance. Harbor Freight is good and cheap, but if you want quality you can trust, buy this jack over the cheaper alternatives. The number of positive reviews for this jack (and the few negative reviews complaining about defects and such) sold me on this jack.
I will try to post a follow up later on this jack to show long term progress.
| Manufacturer | Milestone Tools |
|---|---|
| Brand | Yakitoko |
| Item Weight | 59.2 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 28.4 x 13.9 x 7.4 inches |
| Item model number | 380044 |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Manufacturer Part Number | 380044 |
