How to Properly and Safely Raise Your Car or Truck Off the Ground

I've seen someone jack up their car like this. I'm going to show you the safe way of doing it.

Hey, friends. It's Len from 1A Auto. When I'm here working on cars, it's easy to forget how lucky I am to have access to a lift. It's not usually until I'm sitting in the driveway, working with my parents on their car that I think to myself, boy, this would be so much easier with a lift, but here I am with a jack and some stands. This is why we made this video to offer you information and show you the safest way to raise and support your vehicle. First of all, I always like to talk about safety, safety, safety. So, there's things we need to talk about before we even start jacking up a car. When people are stressed, they tend to make mistakes. Getting your wheels off the ground takes careful thought and process. So, keep your head in the game, and don't be distracted. Anytime you plan on getting underneath your vehicle, it's imperative that you have a second person around. The reason for that is because in case an incident occurs, you need somebody there that's going to be able to quickly react.

Now, speaking of safety, I can understand the thought of raising and supporting your vehicle might seem a little confusing or even scary. Confusing because you probably don't spend very much time underneath the vehicle. So, to look underneath there, you see all sorts of things and you're not exactly sure maybe where the safest place is to lift and support your vehicle. The scary part, of course, could be if you jack up the vehicle in the wrong area, it could potentially cause damage and/or personal harm. So, if someone says support the vehicle with a suspension hanging, what they mean by that is you're going to be lifting the vehicle generally by the frame of some sort, whether it's by the full-frame or the subframe of the vehicle. You're going to have the suspension hanging down so the control arms are like this. And the reason for that is so you can easily do front end work as necessary. Can you also lift the vehicle without the suspension hanging? Well, yeah, on some vehicles you can, especially ones with straight differentials that go from side to side, such as something maybe like a pickup truck.

Now, let's talk about frames of vehicles. That's kinda like the foundation for your house. Without a good foundation or a good frame, obviously you're gonna have safety issues overall. The two types of frames that I can think of offhand would be a full-frame, that would be generally found in a pickup truck or even a rear-wheel-drive vehicle. The reason why you'd want to have it in a pickup truck is because it's going to be the most heavy-duty overall and it's going to help with tow capacity and, of course, any type of load that you might have inside the vehicle. It's going to be more structurally sound. Front-wheel drive vehicles on the other hand, are going to have a subframe. What I mean by subframe is it's just going to be this little square or even rectangle that's generally in the front of the vehicle. And then you'll probably have one in the rear of the vehicle as well for the suspension. But the one in the front of the vehicle is going to hold onto the engine and the transmission weight and it's going to kind of keep everything from shifting around overall. The reason why you would have a subframe inside most front-wheel drive or even all-wheel-drive vehicles is mainly due to fuel economy. The less weight you have in your vehicle, the better overall for fuel efficiency. If you have a full-frame type of vehicle, it's going to be made out of steel more than likely. If you have a subframe in your vehicle, that might be made out of steel or even aluminum in some cases.

With all that said, the safest place to jack your vehicle is going to be on the frame. That's going to be the most structurally sound. If you have a full-frame vehicle, you're gonna have a whole bunch of places that should safe enough for you to jack and raise your vehicle. And, of course, safely support it. If you have a full differential like this one, you can jack underneath the pumpkin in the center and then, of course, put your jack stands right along the outer edge of the differential tube. And on subframe type vehicles like the front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive, overall, you're going to have your subframe. That's going to be a great place to try to jack up the vehicle, but it might not be the best place to try to put some jack stands because it's going to be closest to the center of the vehicle. We want to be out as far as possible. With that said, if you look right along the body, you're going to see this little lip that runs along it. That's called the pinch rail. If you were to jack on that pinch rail in the wrong spot, you could potentially damage the body of your vehicle. But if you look hard enough, generally right behind the front wheel or in front of the rear wheel, you're going to find reinforced areas or even markings on the pinch rail that say, hey, this is the best place for you to put your jack stands and/or jack up the vehicle as necessary. Always make sure that you check the area that you wanna apply pressure to to lift the vehicle. Of course, if there's a tiny bit of rust, it's probably not that big of a deal, but if it's a lot of rust or even a rot hole, it's very unsafe.

Now, we should talk about a safe location for raising and supporting your vehicle. It only makes the most sense to be as far away from traffic as possible. Why? Because if you're going to be working around your vehicle, you definitely don't want other things coming flying by you. You definitely also want to make sure you're away from random people. You don't want a whole bunch of people hanging out around you while you're trying to do this job just in case something does happen. When you're planning on raising and supporting your vehicle, you want to make sure you're on a flat level surface. That surface should also be hard. You want to do it on something like asphalt or concrete, but definitely not grass, dirt, or anything else the like. Anytime you raise even one wheel off the ground, you create a possibility for the vehicle to potentially roll or shift in some way. Even when parked on a slight hill, you can put anyone raising and supporting a vehicle and getting underneath it in an unsafe predicament. You also, of course, want to make sure you have the proper rated jack and stands. What I mean by that is you're going to see a little weight rating right on either the jack or the stand, it has to be there. It might say 2-ton, might say 4-ton, or even higher. If you're raising a small vehicle, you could probably go with a lower one, but you definitely want to check the rating to make sure that it's strong enough to support the weight of your vehicle.

If you're wondering about the weight of your vehicle, you can usually open up your driver's door and take a look at the sticker that looks like this. Right up along the top, you're gonna see GVWR, that's basically gonna stand for your vehicle's weight. And that's the total right there. It should also break it up to let you know the front and then, of course, the weight of the rear. That way there, when it comes time to jacking, or, of course, using jack stands, you know exactly how much weight you need to support. If for some reason you're going to be removing your wheels, it's important to make sure that you break free all of the lug nuts on the corresponding wheels you're going to be servicing. What I mean by that is just go around, break those lug nuts free before you even start jacking up the vehicle.

When it comes time to jacking up your vehicle, you're going to want to make sure you're doing it slow. The reason for that is because as you go up, you're going to be creating inertia and the last thing you want to do is shift the vehicle in any way. You always want to make sure that your vehicle is either in park or in first gear if you have a manual transmission, of course, keep the e-brake on and chalk any wheels on the front and back, whichever ones aren't going to be leaving the ground. It's important to only raise your vehicle as high as needed to get under it or service it. The reason for that is because the higher up you go, the more unsafe overall it gets. It's safest to keep at least two wheels on the ground at all times. That's not always going to be the case, but as you go up with those two wheels, just pay attention to the angle of the vehicle as you're going up. Of course, the more steep the angle, the less safe it's going to be for a jack stand and it might, of course, potentially slip out.

What you might happen to realize is on some front-wheel drive vehicles there isn't going to be a spot in the center of the rear of the vehicle to raise both sides at the same time to support them. If that's the case, I would start raising the vehicle from the rear on one side, put in a jack stand, move over to the other rear, have them both as level as possible, and then make my way to the front. So, sometimes working on your vehicle, it's not going to be possible to keep two wheels on the ground. So, if you have to have all four wheels off the ground, it's important to make sure that you start with the front wheels, jack those up, put jack stands under them, and then work your way to the rear and make it as level as possible overall. Once you have your vehicle safely up on the stands, just give it a little jaunce. Don't try to push it off the stands or anything like that. We just want to make sure that in case something happens and you maybe give it a little bump, the vehicle's not going to go anywhere. Now, I know not everybody has jack stands inside their vehicle with their emergency jack. With that said, if you're stuck on the side of the road and you have to replace your tire or whatever the case may be, you need to use something underneath the vehicle to make sure that it's safe in case it does happen to come down off the jack. If you happen to have your wheel off, because you're replacing it, just go ahead and put that wheel right underneath the edge of the vehicle. That way there, if something happens, it's gonna have a place to go and it's not going to be on you.

Okay, friends. So, we tried to give you an informational video on things you should think about when it comes time to safely raise and supporting your vehicle. Hopefully, you learned a little something. If you did and you want to talk about it, leave it in the comments section below because I always love to hear from you. While you're at it, if you like the video, smash on that like button for me, it would mean the world. Go ahead and subscribe and ring the bell. That way there, you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.