You’ve got a low car and can’t jack it up, right? Search no more, this article will guide you on how to jack up a low car.
Jacking up a low-profile car is a headache and sometimes you can’t even fit a floor jack underneath your vehicle. You’ll know here how to fit a floor jack under your lowered car if you’re unable how to do it.
In short, you’re going to jack up your low car even if it has less than 2.75” (7 cm) ground clearance.
So, let’s jack up your low car.
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How to Fit a Jack under a lowered car?
Getting straight into the job, you’ll have to get yourself a floor jack for lifting your lowered car. Put aside a bottle, trolley, or a scissor jack if you want to use them for raising a low-profile vehicle. Since you got a low clearance car, you need a jack that has the lowest min-height. And that feature comes in floor jacks only, not in a bottle or in trolley jacks.
But in floor jacks, the min lift range varies from 3 – 5 inches. Find a floor jack of the lowest min lift range—will come to that later. Even before getting the right floor jack, check out your car’s clearance. How low is it? Does it have a 5” clearance, 4 or 3 inches ride height?
If your car has a ride height from either of these three, lifting is easier. If your vehicle has a 2.75” clearance, still some floor jacks in the market are available with 2.75” min-height. So you’ll just need that floor jack. Luckily, this article, the best floor jack for lowered cars, hosts such a floor jack.
Buy the Arcan floor jack that has 2.75” min-height mentioned in the above article. And slide it under your car. Pump the jack to raise your vehicle.
Is your car lower than 2.75 inches? If so, here’s the crack for that as well. Say, your vehicle has a 2” clearance, maybe 1.75” or let’s say it has a 1.5” (3.81 cm) clearance. To raise your 1.5” clearance car, you need at least 2.75” clearance to fit the Arcan floor jack.
Again you need at least 7 cm clearance to fit the floor jack. Because a floor jack with less than 7 cm height isn’t available in the market. If you already got that Arcan floor jack, that’s great. Even if the type of floor jack you got has a 3” min-height, that will still work. Here’s how.
How to Use Ramps for a Low Car to Increase its Clearance
How to get that 2.75” clearance? Well, two ways you can raise your vehicle 2.75” without a jack.
The first way is easier but it costs you a few bucks, less than 50. That’s to buy a ramp for your lowered car, maybe two ramps.
We’ve got your back and brought you the best ramps as well. But before we show you where you can find them, let’s first jack up your car to that 2.75” with these ramps. The ramps are 27.5” (2.3 feet) long. They are 2.75” in height. And the interesting part is, they have a 9.05-degree loading angle.
Since your vehicle is lower than 2.75”, you can easily load your low-profile car over these ramps. Because they have a low inclination angle, 9.05 degrees. Your car’s front body ahead of the front wheels will not touch the ramps, and you’ll easily load your vehicle over it. Hence, you’ll get more than 2.75” clearance to slide the floor jack beneath.
If your car had a 1.5” clearance, with these ramps, you’ll have a 4.25” (10.8 cm) ride height. With this clearance, you can slide the floor jack easily in this area. So just slide it beneath and start raising your low-profile vehicle.
The second way is to use a piece of wood instead of a ramp. This is the cheaper way. The wedge should have a smaller height so that you can fit it under your vehicle near the wheels. If you drive up your car on the wedge you’ll get sufficient clearance to slide a floor jack under your car.
Find a Solid Ground for Jacking a Low-profile Car
This step is essential before fitting a jack under your lowered car. A concrete ground gives strong support to your vehicle. It prevents sinking in. You can jack your car in a garage, which obviously will be a concrete surface.
Lifting your car on a roadside also provides solid ground and it’s even better. Avoid an unlevel or inclined surface for elevating your low car. After you’ve found the right place, make sure to gear your car to park or keep your car in the first gear. Pull in the handbrake as well.
Where are the Jack Points under a low-ground clearance car?
The four main jack points in every vehicle are located near each wheel. Front tires have jack points at their backside under the doors. While the back wheels jack points are ahead of the tires.
Some vehicles also have one jack point between the front wheels ahead of the front axle for raising the front end at once. Another jack point for lifting the rear end is at the back of your vehicle. If you’re unsure of these jack points, look at the owner’s manual to locate the jack points.
In fact, your car’s manual will guide you the right way for finding jack points. Because every vehicle especially lowered cars have jack points located at different positions.
How to Chock a Lowered Car Wheels?
One last thing before raising your low car is chocking the wheels. This is an added point for saver work. It prevents your car from undesired rolling. Blocking the wheels helps in an inclined surface especially.
You may not find small enough chocks to place them under your low-profile car. But by engaging the handbrake, your car won’t roll away. Because your car is low to the ground which will not cause any uninvited moving or tipping.
If you find some chocks, always block the opposite end of your car. This means if you want to raise the front end, block the rear wheels and vice versa.
How to Raise a low car with a floor jack?
As you’ve parked your car on solid ground, you’ve found a jack point, let’s raise your low-profile car with a floor jack. Slide your floor jack under the jack point. Then start pumping the jack. You can do so by raising the handle up and down multiple times so that it lifts your vehicle to the desired height you want.
Speaking of height, you should raise your car high enough to place a jack stand underneath. Because jacks are used for lifting purposes only, not for holding your car—more on it in the next heading.
Where to Place a Jack Stand under a low-profile car?
Once you lifted your car with a jack, now is the time to fit a jack stand underneath. The jack stand should be near the jack. Because you’re going to remove the jack and the stand will hold your vehicle then.
You should make sufficient space for a jack stand to fit it under the jack point. For that, raise your car higher than the stand’s height, the desired jack stand height you want.
Say, you want a 16” area beneath your car, extend the stand to 16”. Lift your vehicle at least 18” with the jack so that you can easily place the 16” jack stand.
About the jack stand location, if you want to raise the right front wheel of your car, the jack stand should also be placed near the right front wheel. In the case of front tires, place the jack stand just behind the front wheel near the jack, which will also be behind the front wheel.
After the car securely relies on the jack stand, now you can do the tire change or any repair in your low profile car. You can shock your vehicle with your hands to see if it is resting securely on the stands.
How to Lower a Low car?
So you’ve done your job and it’s time to lower your low profile car, right? Let’s bring down your car. Since your vehicle is resting on the jack stand, you need to hoist your car a few inches high off the jack stand. Doing so will help you easily remove the stand.
Place the floor jack under the same jack point you’ve fitted before. Pump the jack and raise your car. Once you’ve lifted your vehicle high enough that it rested upon the jack, not the jack stand, remove the stand. Then rotate the jack’s handle counterclockwise to lower the jack, hence dropping the vehicle.
After the car comes down completely, remove the floor jack. Your car will be on the ramps now if you’ve used them. Unload your car off the ramps. And now you’ve lowered your car.
Wrapping up
You’ve seen that jacking up a low car requires proper jack and ramps. It’s not a big deal to raise your low-profile car. Double-check to find a floor jack that has a smaller min-height than your car’s clearance. If you’ve found such a jack, which you can by going through this article best floor jack for lowered cars, you won’t need any ramp for raising your car.
Always lift your car on a concrete and a level surface for secure lifting. Never go under your car until it rests on the jack stand, not the jack only.