Getting a 2 post car lift installed in a home garage or commercial shop is a job we run every week across Iowa. Our crew at Auto Lift Services has installed hundreds of two-post hoists — from an 8,000 lb symmetric in a hobbyist’s converted pole barn to a 15,000 lb heavy-duty asymmetric in a fleet bay. We haul the tools, drill the anchors, wire the motor, and run the lift through its full break-in cycles before we hand you the keys. Customers in central Iowa call us because a bad install voids the warranty and can turn a solid piece of equipment into a liability.
Rotary, Challenger, BendPak, and more — with turnkey Iowa installation available on every model we sell.
What a full “2 post car lift installed” job actually includes
When someone in Iowa asks to have a 2 post car lift installed, they’re usually picturing a delivery truck rolling up and a lift standing in the bay a few hours later. That’s roughly the shape of it, but a proper install has a lot of moving parts. Our crew uncrates the columns, verifies plumb to within 1/8 inch, marks and hammer-drills the anchor pattern, torques the anchors to the manufacturer’s spec (usually 110-150 ft-lb depending on the model), and installs the crossbeam or overhead shutoff bar.
From there we run the hydraulic lines, fill the reservoir, wire the 220V motor to your breaker, and cycle the lift five to seven times with the arms empty to bleed the system. Then we test with an actual vehicle. A symmetric floor-plate install typically takes four to six hours on-site; overhead-shutoff models add another hour. When you’ve had a 2 post car lift installed by our crew, we don’t leave until it’s rated, safe, and cycling smooth.
Concrete is the make-or-break spec
The biggest install-day heartbreak is a bay with concrete that can’t hold the anchors. Most 10,000 lb two-post lifts require a minimum of 4 inches of 3,000 psi cured concrete; 12,000 lb lifts often need 4.25 inches at 4,000 psi. A recent job near La Porte City had 5 inches with rebar sitting almost at the bottom — that’s fine, because the rebar doesn’t interfere with our drill depth. We drilled, torqued, and cycled with no drama.
Where things get interesting is with hydronic in-floor heat. A shop east of Des Moines had a beautiful 6-inch pour with epoxy on top and PEX heat lines somewhere in the middle. We drill 4.5 to 5 inches for the anchor, so we always ask for the heat-line depth or run a thermal-imaging pass before we bring the hammer drill. Add-on concrete pads and re-pours are options, but they add cost and dry time. If you’re pouring a new slab specifically for a lift, tell us early and we’ll spec the mix, thickness, and control-joint layout. Getting the concrete right is the single biggest factor in whether your 2 post car lift installed job goes clean.
Ceiling height, bay width, and clearances
A 10,000 lb symmetric floor plate two-post typically needs 11 feet of clear ceiling minimum; 12 feet is our comfortable target. Overhead-shutoff models with the crossbar arch need closer to 12.5 feet because the bar itself lives up top. Bay width is usually less of a fight — 12 feet between column bases is enough for most standard installs, though wide-drive-thru configurations spread that to 14 or 15 feet, and heavier commercial models can go wider.
A shop out of state recently emailed us about a 12-foot ceiling and a lift that had been installed once before, but the current owner didn’t know the concrete depth. We ran a small core sample the day of install to confirm 4 inches of solid pour before drilling. Iowa customers with newer builds — a 14-foot ceiling shop in the Pleasant Hill area was recent — have plenty of headroom for any two-post on the market. Older shops in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, or Sioux City sometimes need us to switch from an overhead-shutoff lift to a floor plate model because that extra foot of ceiling doesn’t exist. Measure ceiling clearance at the highest point of your future arm-full-up position, not just at the entry door.
Symmetric vs asymmetric — pick before install day
The choice between symmetric and asymmetric changes where the columns sit and what vehicles the lift best handles. Symmetric lifts square the columns to each other with matched arms and are best for balanced trucks, SUVs, and vans where the door opens near the middle of the wheelbase. Asymmetric lifts rotate the columns 30 degrees to give the driver a wider door-opening gap; they’re best for cars and light-duty vehicles under 6,000 lb. Versymmetric designs — Rotary SPOA10 is the classic example — can do both.
A Mercedes collector in the Des Moines metro picked a versymmetric specifically because he wanted to swing wide doors clear without banging paint on the column. Before install day, know which configuration you want, because the arm assemblies are handed and we only bring what you ordered. We also carry a stock of arm-restraint gears and pins because those are the single most common wear item on a working two-post. Order the lift, tell us the vehicle mix on the phone, and we’ll confirm the symmetric-vs-asymmetric call together before we schedule the crew. See our symmetric vs asymmetric guide for more.
Iowa install service areas and lead times
We install throughout Iowa and into neighboring states from our Ames base. Same-week installs are usually possible for Des Moines, Ames, Ankeny, Story City, and the Cedar Rapids corridor. Iowa City, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Dubuque, Davenport, Sioux City, and Council Bluffs typically fit into a one-to-two-week window depending on our route. We keep a running route calendar so we can bundle jobs.
We also travel outside Iowa — a customer up in North Dakota with a budget-capped residential order didn’t want install, so we routed it as a shipped-only job. Out-of-state installs are quoted with a distance ramp so you know exactly what the drive costs before we commit. A used-lift install in eastern Iowa recently came in at a lower quote because the customer already had the lift on-site and a forklift for uncrating; installs on new equipment with our full crew run higher because we’re bringing the tools, the anchors, the fluid, and the calibration hardware. If you need a 2 post car lift installed on a tight timeline for a shop opening, tell us early — sometimes we can pull a Saturday slot with enough notice.
Common install-day surprises we plan around
After hundreds of two-post installs, the surprises fall into predictable buckets. First: unknown concrete. A shop that had its lift installed once before but didn’t know the pour depth pushed us to default to a core sample any time the concrete history is unclear. Second: unexpected obstacles. A residential garage install down south required us to move the lift 100 feet from the driveway into the garage because there was no forklift on-site; we plan for that with lift-handling dollies when the customer flags it up front.
Third: 220V wiring that doesn’t exist. Most home garages have a 30-amp dryer circuit but no dedicated two-post feed; we coordinate with a local electrician to pull a proper 220V/30A dedicated breaker before we arrive. Fourth: the wrong lift. Occasionally a buyer picks a direct-import lift from an online marketplace that ships with a barely-usable manual and non-standard hardware. We can still install those, but the pre-call gets longer because we have to reverse-engineer the assembly sequence. Read our lift service guide for what happens after install.
What we bring vs what you provide on install day
When we roll up to get your 2 post car lift installed, our truck carries the anchors, the impact tools, the hammer drill and bits, the torque wrench, the hydraulic fluid, the level and plumb bob, the electrical hardware for the motor drop, and the calibration cycle sheet. What we ask the customer to have ready: a clean swept bay; the lift itself uncrated and staged (or crated if you don’t have a forklift and we’re bringing our own equipment); the 220V circuit either wired or scheduled with an electrician for install day; the vehicle you plan to test-lift on; and enough elbow room for our crew.
If you’re not sure what “staged” means for your lift, call us and we’ll walk you through it. We charge for reschedules that happen because a bay isn’t ready, so we’d rather you be honest about your setup than surprise us at 8 AM. For customers who want the whole thing turnkey — including electrical and concrete work — we quote that as a bundle. Call 800-674-9302 or see our installation cost guide to get started.
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