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I am what you would call an avid diy/borderline shop. I do a whole lot of repairs for myself family friends, acquaintances, plus I do a ton of side work. In the last week in the last 30 days I hav done 3 transmission swaps and 2 engone swaps. I own a 4 bay shop, with shop air plumbing, it i already prewired for a lift and has had one in it before I purchased it. With my work load steadily two transmission or engine swaps a month would a lift be a worth while investment for me? I sure am getting tired of crawling on my back and such laying in spilled fluids and wrestling transmissions in and out of with 24 inches of room what say u pro technicians i can get a 9000 lb lift for $2500. Is it worth it?
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I don’t know about pricing (good,bad or otherwise). I know everywhere I’ve worked lifts have made the work literally 1000 times easier. My best friends dad is a DIY’er like you. He got a lift and he was able to take on so much more work. It sped up work like engine swaps, and tranny replacements like you are doing.
Based on what you are saying and the work you are doing I would go for it. Your back will thank you also.
Lifts do make work a lot lot easier on cars. On big rigs not so much. For cars you are going to want to get a light duty truck lift aka f550 lifting capacity unless you already have one. Pepboys normally has 1 15k lb lift and then the rest are 10k lb if I remember correctly. Lifts make things tremendously easier especially for lube techs. The lifts normally run around 2.5k to 5k but, that never includes installation which if I remember correctly was 1.5k. You are probably going to want to go with a 2 post lift to start out its what most shops use but, a 4 permanent mounted post lift is mainly used for alignments and low profile cars and does not give as much ease of access. Stay away from the rolling 4 post lifts that lift the tires up because low profile cars do not like them. Also you may have to jack the car up to get onto lifts for really low profile cars. I had to do that at pepboys more then once. With the 2 post style it unsprings the suspension which allows you to see shocks and struts and brakes etc really easy. When you get one you want to make sure you get your guys trained on it and go over the safety stuff like letting it back down so it sits on the posts and to rock the car 2 inches off the ground to make sure its not going to slide on the lift and cost you money. You need to make sure they get serviced regularly and you also need to make sure you get one with a safety bar up top to prevent people from jacking vans through the roof.
Thats about as much as I know about them. Sorry I don’t know brands etc.
A lift is endlessly worth the cost one you already have the place for one. One of my best friends, because he is a die hard worker, made tons of money with 2 bays and no lifts. He is so much better off now that he has a shop with 2 Mohawk 10,000lb lifts. My shop also has Mohawk lifts and I feel very lucky because they are the crème de al crème, like Michelin tires vs. all the rest.
Aside from them there are many good less expensive lifts, some of which I’ve worked with, but the following video really makes me double check any lift I’d be looking at.
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