An overlanding enthusiast in Ankeny called us early last year with a specific project: he had a first-gen Toyota Tacoma built for extended trail trips and a Ford Bronco in various stages of overhaul, and he wanted a car lift automotive setup that could handle both vehicles for seasonal storage, drivetrain access, and the occasional tire rotation between trail seasons. He’d already committed to a heated three-bay pole barn addition, and he wanted the lift install baked into the site design rather than added later. This is the case study of that install — from site survey through anchor placement through post-install customer use. It’s a good template for any Iowa homeowner considering the same kind of build.
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The Ankeny build: overlanding Tacoma and a Bronco
The Ankeny customer is a serious overlanding enthusiast whose primary vehicle is a first-generation Tacoma with three inches of suspension lift, 33-inch tires, a roof rack, and a bed rack carrying rooftop storage. His secondary vehicle is a mid-1970s Bronco in mixed condition — some months it’s a project, some months it’s a daily driver. He wanted a car lift automotive setup that would let him do winter storage of one vehicle above the other, handle occasional drivetrain access on the Bronco, and support routine tire and brake work on the Tacoma between trail trips.
That combination of use cases pointed us toward a four-post drive-on rather than a two-post. Storage was the killer requirement — a two-post is not a storage lift, and the customer specifically wanted to park the Tacoma above the Bronco during the winter months to reclaim floor space. For a car lift automotive setup where storage is a real use case, four-post is the only reasonable answer. Two-posts are designed for service, not for indefinite loaded parking. We spec’d a Rotary 9,000 lb four-post home-storage lift with drive-through capability, extended runways for the longer wheelbase of the lifted Tacoma, and a rolling jack option for the occasional wheels-off work. The rolling jack was a real add — most home-storage buyers skip it and regret it.
Site survey: measuring what actually matters
Every car lift automotive install starts with a site survey, and this one started with three specific measurements: interior ceiling clear height, existing slab thickness, and door swing envelope. The Ankeny build was still in pole-barn construction when we walked it, which gave us the rare chance to influence the design rather than adapt to it. We recommended he push the ceiling to 14 feet clear rather than the 12 feet his builder originally specced, which cost him roughly an extra thousand dollars in wall panels but bought him another two feet of vehicle-stack clearance.
That extra two feet turned out to be critical. A lifted Tacoma on 33s sits about 78 inches tall at the roof rack. With a Bronco underneath at approximately 72 inches on its stock rubber, plus the four-post runway itself at about 10 inches, plus a comfortable working gap between the roof of the lower vehicle and the underside of the upper vehicle’s runway, we needed 13 feet clear minimum. The 14-foot ceiling gave him a foot of margin, which is exactly the buffer you want when your rooftop configuration changes. If he ever adds a taller roof tent to the Tacoma, he’s still fine. Most car lift automotive site surveys we do involve subtracting for stuff nobody drew on the plans. This one added because the build wasn’t done yet. That’s the ideal case.
Slab thickness and PSI requirements
A four-post home-storage lift requires a minimum four-inch slab at 3,000 PSI concrete. That’s the manufacturer’s spec and it’s the number we hold every install to. For the Ankeny build, we spec’d the slab at five inches at 3,500 PSI to give the customer margin for future upgrades — if he ever wants to swap to a heavier commercial four-post or add a two-post as a second lift, the slab won’t be the limiting factor.
The slab was poured with wire mesh reinforcement and control joints cut on a grid pattern outside the intended lift-post locations. Getting the joints away from the anchor pattern matters — anchors installed into or near a control joint are more likely to spall the concrete over time. Most Iowa concrete contractors don’t automatically ask where the lift is going, so we always attend the slab pour or at least mark the anchor locations on the plans before pour day. For this build, we chalked the anchor pattern on the compacted subgrade before the concrete truck arrived and made sure the joint cuts were placed to avoid the pattern. That’s a car lift automotive install detail nobody asks about but everybody should. A cracked anchor at year seven is nine times out of ten a control-joint placement problem, and it’s almost always preventable by ninety minutes of coordination with the concrete crew. Ninety minutes then, or two-thousand-dollar spall repair later. Easy choice.
Anchor placement around existing floor cracks
Cracks in an existing slab are the reason many home-garage car lift automotive installs get rejected on inspection. A crack near an anchor point weakens the concrete’s ability to hold the anchor under load, and a crack that runs through the anchor pattern often means the slab underneath is not continuous. Neither is acceptable for a lift install.
For the Ankeny build, we had the benefit of a brand-new slab with zero cracks. For most retrofit installs in older Iowa garages we’re not so lucky. When we walk an existing slab, we mark every visible crack with chalk, measure width and length, and either move the lift pattern to avoid them or recommend a partial slab cut-and-pour to replace the compromised section. A cut-and-pour of a lift-pattern area runs a modest four-figure amount depending on square footage — it’s not cheap but it’s cheaper than an anchor failure. For the Ankeny customer we didn’t need any of this, but we walked him through the inspection routine so he’d know how to evaluate a future slab if he ever moves. A car lift automotive purchase is a long-term commitment to a specific slab. Understanding the concrete under the lift is as important as understanding the steel above it. Concrete outlasts most marriages; treat it that way.
Ceiling clearance for a lifted rig on 37s
The customer’s Tacoma was on 33s at the time of the install, but he mentioned that he might upgrade to 37s in a couple of years for a specific trail he was planning to run in Utah. That plausible future informed our runway height spec. A four-post drive-on has a fixed runway height at raised position — usually around 78 to 84 inches, depending on model. That’s the underside-of-runway measurement, and the vehicle sitting on the runways sits above that.
For his 33-inch tire configuration, we had comfortable clearance. For a hypothetical 37-inch upgrade, we were still comfortable but the margin was tighter. If he goes higher than 37s or adds a roof tent, we’d want to revisit. This is the kind of forward-planning conversation we have on every home-garage car lift automotive install where the customer is a serious enthusiast — because enthusiasts change their rigs, and a lift that fits today’s configuration might not fit tomorrow’s. Building in margin is cheap on install day and expensive to retrofit. Two feet of ceiling and eighteen inches of runway variance is enough to cover almost any hobby build over a ten-year horizon. Plan for the rig you might build, not just the rig you have. Every enthusiast we’ve installed for has thanked us for that conversation at least once.
Four-post choice and rolling jack option
We ended up installing a Rotary MOH 9,000 lb home-storage four-post with the drive-through configuration and a pair of rolling jacks. The MOH is one of Rotary’s most common home-garage models, and the drive-through option matters when the bay has doors on both ends or when the customer wants the flexibility to load from either direction.
The rolling jack add was a mid-three-figure line item at install and it’s the accessory the customer has thanked us for most often. When he needs to rotate tires on the Tacoma, he doesn’t have to break the four-post’s normal wheels-supported configuration — he just rolls the jacks under the frame, lifts the chassis a foot off the runways, and pulls the wheels. Total additional time to switch modes: about two minutes. Without the rolling jack, he’d have to either drop the vehicle off the lift entirely for wheels-off work or use portable jack stands, both of which are workflow-killers in a home garage. This is the kind of car lift automotive detail that separates a well-planned install from a shopping-cart install. It doesn’t cost much and it dramatically increases the range of jobs the lift can handle. If you’re buying a home four-post and you plan to do any wheels-off work at all, always add the rolling jacks.
Post-install: how the customer uses it
Fifteen months after install, the customer’s use pattern has settled into three modes. Winter storage: Bronco lives on the floor, Tacoma lives on the raised runways, from November through late March. That mode alone justified the lift purchase in his mind — he reclaimed a full parking spot in the barn and eliminated the seasonal battery-tender-and-cover ritual on whichever vehicle got exiled to the storage shed.
Trail-prep mode: three or four times a year before major trips, he drops the Tacoma to the runways, uses the rolling jacks for tire rotation and brake inspection, and does a full underbody walk-around for skid-plate condition and leaks. Project mode: for the Bronco, he raises it on the four-post for drivetrain access when he’s got a weekend to spend on it. He said the lift has changed his approach to the Bronco project — he does more work on it because the work is less painful. That’s the highest compliment a car lift automotive install can earn. If you’re planning a similar home-garage build in Ankeny or anywhere else in central Iowa, call 800-674-9302 and we’ll walk your site with you before you pour the slab. Getting it right the first time is much cheaper than getting it right the second time.
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