An RV and trailer service shop near Cedar Falls called us last year needing a lift that could handle heavy pickups and tow vehicles for engine oil pan gasket work without eating their whole bay. Twelve months later, they’re a good case study for what actually happens after you buy a BendPak XPR-10AS — not the spec sheet version, the real one, from delivery day through the first hundred service jobs. We handled the install, and we’ve been back for routine service since, so we’ve got a real first-year timeline to share instead of just marketing claims.
Get a real quote on a BendPak two post lift, sized for your bay and your vehicles, from an Iowa team that installs and services them ourselves.
Install Day: Delivery and Setup
The shop didn’t have a forklift, which changed the install plan from the start — a detail we always ask about before quoting, because unloading a 10,000 lb capacity two post lift without the right equipment adds time and cost to install day. We coordinated delivery with a liftgate truck and had our crew on site to receive, position, and anchor the columns. From truck arrival to a fully anchored, wired, and oil-filled lift ready for a test cycle, the job took the better part of a full day, which is typical for an XPR-10AS install with standard concrete and no unusual electrical runs.
Because this shop services RVs and trailers alongside standard pickups, we spent extra time during install confirming column spacing worked for their widest tow vehicles, not just their average customer vehicle. The expandable top beam on the XPR-10AS gave us room to set a wider drive-thru configuration than a standard service bay would need, which mattered once we saw the width of some of the fifth-wheel tow rigs coming through their door regularly.
The First Oil Pan Gasket Job Under the New Lift
Within a week of install, the shop ran its first real job on the new lift: an oil pan gasket replacement on a heavy-duty pickup used to tow a travel trailer. This is exactly the kind of job an overhead two post lift is built for — full underside access, both techs able to work at the same time without a middle post in the way, and enough lift height to stand comfortably instead of crouching. The telescoping arm design let the techs find solid frame contact points quickly despite the truck’s aftermarket skid plates, something they said would have taken longer with fixed-length arms.
The drop-end arms came in handy too, since the pad height needed adjusting to clear the lower skid plate setup without repositioning the whole vehicle. That first job became the shop’s benchmark for how much faster gasket and underside work would go compared to their old single-post setup, and it set expectations for every oil pan and undercarriage job that followed that first month.
What Changed in the Shop’s Workflow After Month One
By the end of the first month, the shop had shifted its scheduling around the new lift capacity. Jobs that used to require careful vehicle positioning on their old equipment — anything heavy, anything long, anything with a trailer hitch and towing gear still attached — moved to the XPR-10AS bay by default. The 10,000 lb rated capacity gave them headroom for the heaviest diesel pickups they service without worrying about being near the limit.
They also noticed a labor time difference on repeat oil pan gasket and underside jobs. Two techs working simultaneously without a center column in the way, combined with the single-point safety release making height adjustments faster mid-job, shaved real minutes off jobs they do multiple times a week. Over a month of RV and trailer service work, that adds up to meaningful throughput gains that a lower-capacity or single-post lift couldn’t have delivered.
Twenty-Year Total Cost of Ownership: What We Tell Shops to Expect
When we talk to shops about a BendPak XPR-10AS, we always frame the decision in terms of total cost of ownership over a realistic lifespan, not just the purchase price. A well-maintained two post lift like this can run twenty years or more with proper cable and pulley maintenance, periodic hydraulic fluid checks, and annual safety inspections. Spread the purchase price, freight, and installation cost over two decades of service, and the annual cost drops to a fraction of what most shops assume when they first see the upfront number.
The real cost drivers over twenty years are wear parts — cables, pulleys, safety latches, and hydraulic seals — plus any concrete or anchor work if the lift ever needs to be relocated within the shop. We stock replacement parts for BendPak lifts specifically because shops running these for years need a reliable source when a cable or pulley finally wears out, rather than waiting weeks for a manufacturer backorder that puts a lift out of service.
Maintenance Visits: What We’ve Found After a Year in Service
We did the shop’s first scheduled service visit around the six-month mark, checking cable tension, arm pin wear, anchor torque, and hydraulic fluid condition. Everything came back within normal range, which is typical for a lift running that many cycles a week without abuse. The single-piece column construction on the XPR-10AS held alignment well through the first six months of daily RV and trailer service work, which isn’t always guaranteed with lower-quality two post designs under heavy, repeated use.
At the one-year mark, we came back for a full inspection and found normal wear on the footpads and standard cable stretch consistent with expected use — nothing that needed replacement yet, just documentation for their maintenance log. That kind of consistent, on-schedule service is what actually protects a shop’s investment over the equipment’s full lifespan, far more than any one feature on the spec sheet.
Would They Buy the Same Lift Again
We asked the shop directly at the one-year mark whether they’d make the same choice again, and the answer was yes, with one adjustment: they wished they’d added the extended arm option upfront rather than as an afterthought, since some of their longer trailers benefit from extra reach. Otherwise, the capacity, the drive-thru configuration, and the arm flexibility all matched what an RV and trailer shop actually needs day to day, not just what looked good in a brochure.
For a shop weighing a BendPak XPR-10AS against other 10,000 lb two post options, our honest first-year takeaway is that the equipment performed as advertised, the install process was straightforward once we knew their forklift situation, and the ongoing maintenance costs have been predictable and low. That’s really all a shop can ask for from a piece of equipment they’re going to depend on daily for the next twenty years.
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