Trolley jacks. I'd welcome a bit of advice, please.

[Phutters]

Is there anyone on here who has used a trolley jack on a Karoq? After years of either blagging my neighbour's long-expired (and saggy) trolley jack or latterly taking my life in my hands by using the one that comes with the car, I've decided to get a decent one of my own.

 

This is where I could do with some help. Needless to say I want to get one which goes high enough to get the appropriate wheel well clear of the floor - it'd be pants if I bought one which ran out of lift leaving the tyre catching on the deck.

 

All the cars I've had before have been lower to the ground than this here Karoq (McLarens, Lamborghinis, Bugattis and Ferraris, obvs), so I don't know what maximum lift I need. I can measure the ground clearance at the jacking point, but that doesn't really help too much because I don't know until I try it how much the wheel drops as the shock absorber relaxes.

 

There are some things I'm happy to get on a trial and error basis, but having to send trolley jacks back would get old pretty quickly.

 

Anyone got any sage words?

 

Thanks

 

Pete

 

.

 

 

[john999boy]

I made a heavy duty 'box' that allowed a lower jack to work effectively at an raised height. This gives me the best of both worlds.

As for one specifically for the Karoq my suggestion would be to search for the high lift variants but I can't offer any particular model as a choice.

[DSL]

Have a look at Arcan 3t trolley jacks, usually available from Costco.  I haven’t used mine on my Karoq but it’s got easily enough reach for Disco 3s with air suspension and goes low enough for low slung cars.  I’ve had mine for over 10 years and it has been superb. 

[john999boy]

You'll also find that the Karoq won't get as many punctures as your Bugatti either. 

[DSL]

PS Here’s a pic of mine I’d forgotten even existed!  Amazing what a Google search will bring up.  

 

 

 

[Sanqhar]

A tip re using trolley jacks. Buy a rubber ice hockey puck and cut a slot in it to go over the sill seam jacking point. I had to also do some cut outs on the underside so it fitted the cup on the jack. Works a treat. 

 

tom

[DSL]

Something I have to do yet. ^^^^^^^^^ 

 

[Phutters]

21 minutes ago, john999boy said:

You'll also find that the Karoq won't get as many punctures as your Bugatti either. 

I have to admit that the bit about Bugattis and Lamborghinis wasn't strictly true. Actually, it was a proper load of horse feathers.

 

I only added that to try and make the thread slightly more interesting, even if it was a somewhat disingenuous attempt.

 

I'm mindful that nobody likes a smart*rse (or a braggard), so it's only fair to say for the record that our other car is a ten year-old Fiat 500.

 

And that's so light that Mrs Phutters (who is blessed with arms like tractors) can hold it aloft for nearly twenty minutes without even going pink, which is plenty long enough to rotate all four tyres and have a brew.

 

.

P.S. On an unrelated subject, do you have to have done a certain number of posts before you can edit what you've written, or is there a button somewhere that I've overlooked?

 

.

[john999boy]

As a non Freedom member you have 60 minutes available to edit your posts. As a Freedom member you get an unlimited amount of time (amongst other things) to be able to edit your posts.

 

I can't believe you were hoodwinking your fellow Briskodians with the supercar tale! 

[Phutters]

4 minutes ago, john999boy said:

As a non Freedom member you have 60 minutes available to edit your posts. As a Freedom member you get an unlimited amount of time (amongst other things) to be able to edit your posts.

 

I can't believe you were hoodwinking your fellow Briskodians with the supercar tale! 

.

Thanks. 

 

And as far as the other issue is concerned, it's difficult when you're the latest in a long line of pathological liars. It's in the genes.

 

My granddad told some absolute whoppers.

 

Couldn't trust him as far as you could throw him.

 

.

[CJJE]

I bought a Clarke CTJ2Q from Machine Mart 8 years ago or so (when I was swapping summer/winter wheels on my Golf Plus, and then Golf SV.)

It has a 2 tonne capacity, a minimum height of 135mm and a max of 380mm. The current equivalent seems to be the Clarke CTJ2000LPB 2 Tonne Low Profile Trolley Jack at £41. 

 

It works well, and has had no problems (but I haven't had any need to use it with my Karoq yet.

 

Chris

 

 

Edited 26 February, 2021 by CJJE

[Phutters]

1 hour ago, CJJE said:

I bought a Clarke CTJ2Q from Machine Mart 8 years ago or so (when I was swapping summer/winter wheels on my Golf Plus, and then Golf SV.)

It has a 2 tonne capacity, a minimum height of 135mm and a max of 380mm. The current equivalent seems to be the Clarke CTJ2000LPB 2 Tonne Low Profile Trolley Jack at £41. 

 

It works well, and has had no problems (but I haven't had any need to use it with my Karoq yet.

 

Chris

 

 

.

Thanks Chris

 

That's one of the ones I looked at. It's just that I need to be sure it lifts high enough.

 

I'll admit to being an idle git by asking all the geezers on here instead of going outside and cranking up one corner with the factory jack, but doing that would involve all kinds of b*ggering about swapping cars round. The Fiat lives on a bit of level parking over the road, but the Karoq is halfway up a steep, tight driveway. If I so much as think about taking the handbrake off it'll hurtle down the drive, cross the road and demolish the wall of the sitting room of Brian's house opposite. Though it has no windows, this wall is hard to the road.

 

Brian would be okay with that, but Mrs Brian has a fuse that's about a quarter of an inch long. She gave me a mouthful for offering to clean a set of genitalia that some feckless yob had sprayed on their outside wall.

 

Can't win, can you?

 

That's why I'm asking on here. Life is complicated, init.

 

.

[Karock]

I have several jacks but the one I use most as it is light and thus easy to carry around is this:

 

Clarke CTJ1250AB 1.25 Tonne Aluminium Trolley Jack - Machine Mart - Machine Mart

 

Not cheap but I have just changed the wheels on My Karoq from 18 to 17" and there was plenty of clearance. 

 

As said above, buy an ice hockey puck for a few £s it ensures you do not damage the jacking points  and gives you an extra 1" or so.

[Phutters]

7 minutes ago, Karock said:

I have several jacks but the one I use most as it is light and thus easy to carry around is this:

 

Clarke CTJ1250AB 1.25 Tonne Aluminium Trolley Jack - Machine Mart - Machine Mart

 

Not cheap but I have just changed the wheels on My Karoq from 18 to 17" and there was plenty of clearance. 

 

As said above, buy an ice hockey puck for a few £s it ensures you do not damage the jacking points  and gives you an extra 1" or so.

.

Champion.  That gives me the measurement I need.

 

Thank you.

 

.

[Phil245]

I have OCD and so don't like lifting just one corner of the car in case I twist or over load with stress the part of the car I am lifting.....

 

I therefore use 2 trolley jacks simultaneously either side of the car at the front or back,  pumping a few strokes at a time or getting my lad to assist, so that the car raises at the front or back evenly......

 

However you may be more balanced ( get it ?) than me and not worry about such things.......

 

 

 

.

Edited 26 February, 2021 by Phil245

[CJJE]

The Machine Mart website at Trolley Jacks & Car Jacks - Machine Mart give you a choice of weight limits and lift heights. To be sure you're getting one that lifts a Karoq high enough, you could lift it with the normal jack and measure the gap between the car and the ground, or even just wind the scissor jack out on its own and see how high it will go?

 

And having found the instructions with my jack I see it's overdue for its annual oil and grease! Must see where I can find an ice hockey puck too!

 

Chris

Edited 26 February, 2021 by CJJE

[FlyingGecko]

There was a group test on the Auto Express website last year, should still be available. 

 

Someone also mentioned the "hockey puck" to go in the lifting cup. There's a chap on Ebay (in the UK) sells versions of these, just a couple of quid.  I got three different ones. 

[BoxerBoy]

6 hours ago, Phil245 said:

I have OCD and so don't like lifting just one corner of the car in case I twist or over load with stress the part of the car I am lifting.....

 

I therefore use 2 trolley jacks simultaneously either side of the car at the front or back,  pumping a few strokes at a time or getting my lad to assist, so that the car raises at the front or back evenly......

 

However you may be more balanced ( get it ?) than me and not worry about such things.......

 

 

 

.

Wow!
 

but pointless.

[J.R.]

I use 2 jacks & stands for stability (sloping drive) but to worry about overstressing the structure?

 

You would have to carry a bootfull of caravan levelling blocks and stop everytime you come near a single lump in the road and place one for the other wheel to drive over.

[SurreyJohn]

In the past have seen someone put the jack on a heavy thick old wooden board to raise the height, think it must have come from a piece of old furniture as it had aged varnished look, and was probably decades old.

 

 

[Phil245]

12 hours ago, BoxerBoy said:

Wow!
 

but pointless.

 

Yes possibly...??

 

But having said that when you take a car to a garage they lift it evenly on a proper ramp, I wouldn't want to try & lift a significant part of the cars weight at one small point....

 

But then my affliction of worrying about things like costs me a fortune, one of a million reasons why I wouldn't buy a second hand car.....

[FlyingGecko]

2 hours ago, Phil245 said:

 

Yes possibly...??

 

But having said that when you take a car to a garage they lift it evenly on a proper ramp, I wouldn't want to try & lift a significant part of the cars weight at one small point....

 

But then my affliction of worrying about things like costs me a fortune, one of a million reasons why I wouldn't buy a second hand car.....

 

 

It's not pointless for you Phil, it's what works for you, and that's what counts.  And all it's cost you is what, £40, for the second trolley?  Worth it for your peace of mind.  I've a distant cousin with mild OCD and that's bad enough for his family.

[J.R.]

Its definitely a lot safer, the problem is finding somewhere to jack and somewhere to place the axle stand if like me (mild OCD) you dont want to jack up on the sill, but that is the case whether you jack up on one side or both.

[Sanqhar]

...but the sill jacking point is designed for that purpose. 

 

tom

[DSL]

As above, it’s designed for that.  But a good point above, if using the sill hard point to jack up the car, where can you put an axle stand as a backup?  I usually jack the corner up then partly let it down on an axle stand before fiddling, not sure I’d manage that on the Karoq short of jacking up using the wishbone then putting the stand under the hard point.