I need to buy a new one and was wondering what ton capacity I should get...I had a 2.5 ton jack and it bent while I was changing the brakes! I have a 2006 Lariat 2WD. Anyone have a review on the floor jacks that Harbor Freight sells? The brand is Central Hydraulics and they are pretty affordable....Thanks for the help!

 

Yikes, changing the brakes on your 2006 allready. Do they go that fast. I have a 2.5 ton jack also. Where did you jack you truck up at?

 

I had a commercial 2ton floor jack, it was fine for my truck, but wouldn't lift the front of my dads F350 diesel. So now I bought Craftsman 3.5 ton (not the best quality I know but I need one right away), we have used it to change the tires on our 4900 International dump truck and it worked prefect, but I am still going to buy commercial unit I just don't know what brand yet.

 

Yup, rear pads were almost gone so I decided to replace them all. I bought ceramic pads to cut down on brake dust. I jacked it up on the frame, located about even with the front doors...is there a better position?

 

Nothing wrong at all with the Craftsman floor jacks.

I've had a 4 ton Craftsman Floorjack that I payed about $150.00 for a little over six years now and it still performs like a charm.

 

yes craftsman is the one of the best brand. Anything from harbor freight is kind of cheap made. dont get me wrong, i have a lot stuff from harbor freight, but they are not long lasting tools.

 

Maybe I just got had a couple of bad ones. I bought my first 3.5 ton, unboxed it when I got home and the welds looked like total ____. So I took it back and got another one, basically the same thing, who or what ever welded it did a ver very poor job. Maybe it will last for a long time, hopefully it will. But my next jack is going to be an OTC 3 or 5 ton, since they carry a liftime warranty. And my dads cousin who owns a tire dealership swears by them, they are supposed to be one of the best made.

 

one jack, mid-frame on the truck, I cringe at the thought,
if the truck is anything other than empty, I feel that I would be
tempting to bend the frame, or at least stress the body

in all my vehicles I carry a 2.5 ton floor jack and a 3 ton bottle jack I have never trusted the OEM jacks that come on a vehicle especially after I had a jack twist out under a 87 tarus and bend the frame when I had a flat on the road.
At that time I had an old screw scissor jack thatI was able to slide under the vehicle and lift up and remove the OEM one and change the tire.

When I jack my trucks to do tire rotation and brakes I jack at lift point on rear axle and them on frame at the forward frame cross rail under the front doors and then use a jack stand at both locations

THe 2006 has a 2.5 ton floor jack from walmart, I noticed yeaterday that the seals on it are leaking, I will replace tomorrow

also I have a 5 ton jack I keep in the garage to use with the jack on the vehicle.

I keep both of the jacks that are in the vehicle in bed under the tonneau along with some boards shoring or firm surface when needed, there are times that a floor jack may not work and bottle jack will.

 

I use a 2 1/4 ton floor jack I bought from Harbor Frieght about 10 years ago for about $50. I also bought the rubber pad that replaces the round steel lifting plate that came with it. I jack on the frame, under the side mirror and that allows me to jack up one side of the truck at a time to rotate the tires. Of course I use jack stands.

BTW, (I could be wrong about this....I'm too lazy to look)but I think Ford says in their owners manual NOT to jack up the rear by jacking underneath the rear axle pumkin.

 

I have the 3 1/2 ton Roush Racing jack from Sam's Club. Works great, quality seems very good. Paid $70 BTW, we change front brake pads to eliminate brake dust.

 

I've got a Supercrew FX4, how high will I have to lift the truck for the tires to clear. I think they 3 ton jack at walmart said it could go up to 19", didn't seem like that would be high enough? I've been too lazy to get out there and measure.

 

I'd love to be able to jack my truck up from the frame. .

 

I had to put a 2x4 between the jack and the frame to get the tires off the ground.

Honestly, jacking the truck up isn't that big of a deal. It's removing the wheels/tires. Those things are HEAVY! At least compared to our other cars (Miata and Mini Cooper).

 

This is off topic but does your Mini eat tires up? I swear we are going through tires like nothing. .

 

OFF TOPIC: Our 2006 Cooper S used to eat front tires. But not anymore. The two things that made the biggest difference were:

1. Not running all-season tires. A tire with small / tall tread blocks will get chewed up MUCH faster than a maximum performance summer tire with wide / shallow tread blocks. We started with Falken Azenis RT-615's and have since switched to dedicated race tires (Kumho Escta V710's). We get about 1.5 seasons out of a set of tires (single driver car).

2. Alignment / Swaybar / Shocks. Getting rid of the factory understeer also helped quite a bit. We switched from the 24mm factory front sway bar to the 22 mm front bar that comes on a Cooper (non-S). We also went to zero toe and very little camber in the rear, and zero toe in the front. We run adjustable shocks and run the rears at full stiff when we're autocrossing.

Hope that helps! (tires, swaybar and alignment are the big ones)

Here's a link to some results: (S3GS #198)

https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/file...at%202_pax.htm
https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/file...at%204_pax.htm
http://www.ssscc.org/photos/2007/07photos.htm