A small-fleet operator in West Des Moines called us in the middle of last winter because he needed a 2 post car lift in his shop before the next round of transmission services came due. He runs 22 delivery vehicles, does his own drivetrain work, and had been stacking transmissions on jack stands for three years because his old lift finally lost a column. What he really wanted to know was not the price. It was how the crate was going to arrive, whether his forklift could handle it, and which of two configurations we were pitching would actually survive fleet duty. Here is the full walkthrough we gave him.
Configurations we stock and ship weekly across Iowa.
The Two Configurations on the Table
Configuration A: an asymmetric 10,000 lb clear-floor 2 post car lift with overhead hydraulic lines. Configuration B: a symmetric 12,000 lb baseplate two-post with the same clear-floor drive-through but the safety cable and hydraulic lines routed across the base rather than overhead. He had a 12-foot ceiling, which killed the tallest overhead options. He had a mix of 3/4-ton work vans, a couple of medium-duty box trucks under 10K, and his personal Duramax that pushes into the top of the 10K range. The 12,000 lb configuration gave him headroom on the Duramax with real margin. We recommended Configuration B, and here is why the freight and setup decision followed from that.
How a 2 Post Car Lift Actually Ships
A commercial 2 post car lift arrives on one or two pallets depending on the configuration. Columns are strapped to a wooden skid, arms and small parts are boxed separately, and the whole package usually weighs somewhere between 1,800 and 2,600 pounds. Freight shows up on a 53-foot dry van with a liftgate optional, though liftgate is not really an option for a load this heavy. What you want is a forklift on your end, or you want us to schedule a delivery to our Ames warehouse and coordinate a smaller local truck to your bay. Both paths work. The wrong path is trying to wrestle a crate off a truck with two guys and a floor jack.
The West Des Moines Forklift Question
Our customer had a 5,000 lb forklift, which is the exact question every fleet shop asks. A 5,000 lb forklift with 42-inch forks handles the columns without drama if the pallet is centered. His columns weighed roughly 900 lb each. The overhead crossbar package on Configuration A would have been a slightly heavier single lift. Configuration B’s baseplate package split the weight more evenly across the crate. He preferred that. If you have a 3,000 lb forklift, you can still do this, you just work one column at a time and you strap the load tight. If you have no forklift at all, we deliver with a truck that carries its own means of getting the pallet on the ground, and we schedule that with you before the freight rolls.
The Delivery Window and Install Day
His slab was already six inches with visible rebar from the original build, so no core check was needed. We scheduled freight for a Tuesday, our install crew for Wednesday morning. The crate landed at 10 AM, our crew was on site by 8 AM the next day, the 2 post car lift was standing and plumbed by 3 PM, and we did a full startup and lock-cycle test before we left. This is a typical timeline for a fleet install when the customer has already handled the receiving. If the customer is not on site for freight, we can add receiving to the scope and store the crate at our Ames facility until install day.
Transmission Service on a Baseplate Two-Post
A baseplate configuration is quieter under the hood than an overhead. There is no crossbar to duck under when a technician is standing on a milk crate reaching into a transmission pan. For fleet work where you are constantly pulling pans, checking cooler lines, and running fluid exchanges, the baseplate two-post feels more like a purpose-built service tool and less like an obstacle course. The only tradeoff is that the safety cables run across the floor between the columns, which is fine as long as your slab is flat and you route them clean. For a shop doing frequent transmission service under a low ceiling, this is the configuration we recommend nine times out of ten.
The Total Cost Picture, Freight Included
Freight from our warehouse to West Des Moines added a modest percentage to the base price of the 2 post car lift, well under what most customers expect. Install added a fixed day-rate. The two configurations were within a few hundred dollars of each other on lift price. The 12,000 lb baseplate came out slightly higher, but the fleet operator recovered that on day one because the Duramax fits with margin and he no longer has to move that vehicle to a friend’s shop when it needs work. Real total cost of ownership includes decisions like this that never show up on the initial quote.
How We Coordinate Freight for You
When a small-fleet shop calls us, we ask: forklift or no forklift, ceiling height, slab thickness, door swing, and typical vehicle weight. From that we recommend a configuration, we book the freight, we schedule the install, and we handle every handoff in between. If you want the same walk-through this West Des Moines shop got, call 800-674-9302 and we will run the numbers for your bay before a single crate leaves a warehouse.
Related reading: our lift delivery day guide, our baseplate versus overhead comparison, and our slab prep for two-post lifts.
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