A rural farm shop owner near Ankeny called us on a Saturday morning about a 2 post car lift he had spotted for sale on a farm auction site. It was priced at roughly half of what a comparable new lift costs, and he wanted our honest opinion on whether the deal was as good as it looked. His use case was suspension and shock replacement on family pickups, farm trucks, and the occasional neighbor’s car. He was not running a commercial shop, just tired of jack-stand work in the winter. This article is the used-versus-new decision framework we walked him through, plus the pre-purchase checklist he took to the auction so he would not lose money on a bad find.
Every current-generation model with warranty, ALI certification, and freight quotes to central Iowa on request.
The Used 2 Post Car Lift Market: What’s Really Available
There is an active used market for a 2 post car lift in Iowa, driven mostly by shop closures, retirements, and equipment upgrades. On any given weekend there are usually five to fifteen used 2-post lifts on local auction sites, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist within 200 miles of Des Moines. Prices range from very low for a beat-up 1990s Challenger with rusted cables to mid-four-figures for a well-maintained 2015 Rotary with documented service history. The average asking price sits in the low-to-mid-three-figures per hundred pounds of capacity.
The catch is condition. About half the used lifts we see listed have some combination of stretched or corroded cables, cracked column welds at the base, worn or damaged safety locks, and missing arm pins or pads. Some have the original manufacturer’s data plate obscured or removed. A few are gray-market imports with no ALI certification and no parts availability. We would say roughly 30 percent of used listings are worth serious consideration by a competent buyer, another 30 percent are potentially workable with a rebuild budget, and the remaining 40 percent are not worth the freight. That distribution is why the pre-purchase checklist matters. A rural buyer with no lift experience walking into an auction cold usually ends up in the bottom 40 percent.
New Lift Baseline: What Each Tier Actually Buys
To evaluate a used lift honestly, a buyer needs to know what the new baseline looks like. A brand-new 10,000-pound BendPak XPR-10S delivered to Iowa runs in the mid-four-figures with freight. A commercial-grade new Rotary SPO10 or Challenger CL10 runs in the upper-four-figures to low-five-figures depending on options. Both come with an ALI certification, a manufacturer warranty (typically five years on the structure, two years on hydraulics, one year on motor), free technical support, and a service network that will still exist in ten years.
A used lift at half the new price is theoretically a real discount versus new. But that discount assumes the used lift is in good enough shape to install without significant rework, that it can be inspected and certified, and that parts will still be available for it a decade from now. On an older Rotary or Challenger from 2005 to 2015, parts availability is usually strong. On a discontinued brand or a gray-market import, parts availability collapses fast. The used market discount is real, but only for the right lift. A new lift is the safer default when the buyer has any doubt about the source, condition, or brand of the used option. Sometimes buyers assume ‘used lift’ means ‘same equipment, cheaper.’ It rarely does.
The Pre-Purchase Inspection Checklist for a Used Lift
We built the Ankeny owner a one-page checklist for inspecting a used 2 post car lift before buying. First: verify the ALI certification label on the column. If the label is missing, damaged, or shows a discontinued manufacturer, walk away. Second: inspect the lifting cables end-to-end. Look for corrosion, broken strands, kinks, and evidence of stretch (uneven tension between the two columns). If the cables have any of those, budget for immediate replacement.
Third: cycle the lift under an empty load. Listen for hydraulic noise, watch for uneven lift speed between columns, and confirm the safety locks engage cleanly at every position. Fourth: inspect the anchor holes in the column base — they should be clean and unrusted, without cracked epoxy or elongation. Fifth: check the arm pin bushings for wear. Sixth: photograph the data plate and the model serial number. Seventh: ask for hydraulic fluid change records — a lift that has never had its fluid changed is a red flag. Eighth: get the seller’s phone number and a written bill of sale that lists the lift’s serial number. Ninth: budget 10 to 25 percent of the purchase price for immediate refurbishment of cables, hoses, and pads. The checklist is not exhaustive, but it catches the obvious deal-breakers. Our cable guide covers what to watch for in more detail.
Hidden Costs of a Used Lift: Freight, Rebuild, and Recert
The sticker price of a used 2 post car lift usually excludes several costs a new lift bundles in. Freight is the first. A used lift purchased at auction 100 miles from the buyer’s shop typically needs a flatbed trailer, straps, and someone with a forklift on both ends. That is several hundred to nearly a thousand dollars in transport if the buyer does not have the equipment himself. New-lift freight from our warehouse is usually a small fraction of that to anywhere in Iowa.
Rebuild is the second. A used lift usually needs new cables, new hoses, new fluid, new pads, and possibly a new motor solenoid or hydraulic seal kit. A conservative rebuild budget on a used lift with unknown history is close to a thousand dollars. Recertification is the third. If the lift is going into a commercial insurance policy, an ALI-style annual inspection is required, and some carriers require a first-year certification from a qualified inspector for a few hundred dollars. Installation cost is the same either way — used or new, our crew charges the same rate to install. Add all the hidden costs to the sticker, and a half-price used lift often lands close to a new BendPak baseline once every line item is honest.
When Used Actually Wins: The Two Clear Cases
There are two scenarios where a used 2 post car lift makes clear sense. First: the buyer is highly technical, willing to rebuild, and has the shop equipment (welder, hydraulic press, cable tools) to do the work himself. In that case, a half-price lift that gets a few hundred dollars in owner-installed parts becomes a genuinely discounted total with 15 to 20 years of remaining life. That is a meaningful discount versus new. Second: the buyer is looking at a nearly-new lift — one to three years old, low cycle count, complete service records, being sold because a shop closed or upgraded to higher capacity.
A nearly-new used lift with documentation is the sweet spot of the used market. Those lifts hold 60 to 75 percent of their new price on the used market. If the buyer verifies the ALI certification, confirms low cycle count, and gets a written bill of sale, this is genuinely a good deal. We tell buyers to watch for these listings from professional shop closures — auction companies handling estate sales sometimes have them for reasonable prices. The Ankeny farm shop owner ultimately looked at both markets before deciding. He gave himself six weeks to find a nearly-new listing before falling back to a new-lift purchase.
When New Wins: Warranty, Certification, and Parts
For the majority of buyers, new is the right answer. A new 2 post car lift comes with a documented warranty, ALI certification, current-generation parts availability, and a phone number that will still answer in ten years. Those four things together are worth far more than the nominal savings on a typical used lift. A new lift is also easier to finance — banks lend against new equipment at 0% APR promotional terms, but they will not finance a private-party used lift purchase without a substantial personal guarantee.
New wins hard for anyone running a shop where downtime costs money. If a used lift fails in month six and the manufacturer discontinued the model in 2011, the search for a replacement solenoid or cable set can take weeks. A shop losing hundreds of dollars a day in billable hours to a down lift will burn through the used-versus-new savings in a few days. New wins hard for anyone who is not comfortable doing their own rebuild work. And new wins by default for anyone whose insurance carrier or franchise brand requires ALI-certified current-generation equipment. Used is a specialized purchase; new is the default. We would say 80 percent of our sales are new for reasons that are not marketing — they are the reasons the numbers actually point to.
The Ankeny Shop Owner’s Final Decision
The Ankeny farm shop owner did not buy the original auction lift. He inspected it in person the following weekend and found the cables were visibly corroded with two broken strands per side, the ALI label was gone, and the seller could not identify the model year. Walked away. He then spent five weeks watching used listings and found a 2019 Rotary SPO10 baseplate from a shop that had upgraded to a 15K commercial model. Documentation: complete. Cycle count: under 3,000. He bought it, we hauled it to Ankeny for a modest fee, installed it for our usual install labor rate, and did a full inspection and certification.
Against a new equivalent plus install plus permit, he saved a meaningful amount. That is a real, verifiable used-lift win. He was patient, he inspected carefully, he bought from a professional shop-closure, and he factored all the hidden costs in advance. The framework worked because he followed it. Most farm shop buyers rush to the first Craigslist listing and lose money. If you are in Ankeny or anywhere else in central Iowa considering a used or new 2 post car lift, call 800-674-9302 first. We will run the same framework with you on the phone before you spend a dollar. Related reads: our buyer’s guide and install guide.
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