If you just bought a lift or you’re finally getting around to outfitting the one that’s been sitting bare in your garage or shop, figuring out which lift accessories worth buying and which ones are marketing fluff can be confusing. We’ve installed lifts across Iowa for years, and we’ve watched customers waste money on gadgets they never touch while skipping the one accessory that would’ve saved their knees, their paint job, or their transmission. This list is based on what we actually see get used on the shop floor, not what looks good in a catalog photo.
Browse our parts lookup for jack trays, extensions, and other lift accessories worth buying for your exact make and model.
Rolling Jack Trays: The First Lift Accessories Worth Buying
If you own a two-post lift and don’t have a rolling jack tray yet, this is where to start. Once the vehicle is up in the air, you still need a way to drop a transmission, swap a differential, or support a subframe while it’s disconnected. A rolling jack tray slides along the rail underneath the car so you’re not dragging a floor jack around and fighting for clearance under a raised vehicle. We consider this one of the lift accessories worth buying first because it changes how safely and efficiently you work every single day, not just on special jobs.
Most shops that skip this end up using a shop crane or a stack of jack stands instead, which works but takes far longer and adds risk when you’re constantly repositioning heavy equipment near a vehicle that’s already ten feet in the air. A rolling jack tray rated for your lift’s capacity pays for itself within a few uses just in time saved. If you run a two-post setup and do any drivetrain work, this belongs at the top of your list before anything else on this page.
Drive-On Extensions and Truck Ramps
Longer wheelbase trucks and vans don’t always sit level or fully supported on a standard two-post lift, and that’s where drive-on extensions and adapter ramps earn their spot on any list of lift accessories worth buying. If your shop services one-ton trucks, cutaway vans, or long-wheelbase fleet vehicles, extensions keep the vehicle properly positioned over the arms instead of hanging awkwardly off the front or back of the platform. We’ve retrofitted extensions on a lot of older two-post lifts around Iowa specifically because fleet and farm truck business picked up and the original setup wasn’t built for those dimensions.
The same logic applies to four-post lifts used for storage or alignment work. If you’re loading anything longer than a standard sedan, a set of properly rated extensions keeps the tires fully on the runway instead of teetering near the edge. These aren’t cheap add-ons, but compared to the cost of a vehicle rolling off a lift because it wasn’t fully supported, they’re an easy call. Anyone running mixed fleet or agricultural vehicles through their bay should treat this as a near-mandatory upgrade.
Adapter Blocks and Rubber Pads
Lift pads seem like a small thing until you’re chasing squeaks, pinch points, or paint damage on every vehicle that comes through. Fresh rubber contact pads and the correct height adapter blocks for lower vehicles, EVs with battery packs underneath, or lifted trucks are consistently on our short list of lift accessories worth buying because they solve real problems that show up daily. Worn pads crack, compress unevenly, or go missing entirely, and once that happens you’re contacting bare metal arms against a pinch weld or a battery tray, which is a liability nobody wants.
We keep a rotating stock of adapter blocks in different heights specifically because EVs, sports cars, and lifted trucks each need different contact points to sit level and secure. If your shop works on a mix of vehicle types, having the right adapters on hand means less time hunting for a solution mid-job and less risk of using the wrong lift point out of convenience. This is a low-cost fix compared to almost anything else on this list, and it should never be an afterthought.
Wheel-Free / Alignment Kits for Scissor and Four-Post Lifts
If you’re running a four-post or scissor lift primarily for alignments, turn plates and slip plates are non-negotiable, not optional. Without them you physically cannot get accurate alignment readings, so this is one of the more obvious lift accessories worth buying if that’s part of your service mix. We’ve talked to more than one shop owner who bought a four-post lift assuming alignment work was included, only to realize afterward that turn plates and a rear slip kit are a separate purchase entirely.
Beyond alignments, wheel-free kits let you pull all four wheels off simultaneously for brake jobs, rotations, or suspension work without needing a separate two-post lift or a stack of jack stands. For shops with limited bay space, this single accessory can turn one four-post lift into a machine that handles storage, alignments, and wheel-off service all in the same footprint. If you’re weighing options, our guide on four-post lift accessories worth adding goes deeper into which kits fit which lift models.
LED Lighting and Under-Vehicle Work Lights
It sounds minor, but shop lighting under a raised vehicle is genuinely one of the more underrated lift accessories worth buying, especially in Iowa shops with older fluorescent lighting or bays with limited overhead fixtures. LED strip kits that mount to the lift columns or arms throw consistent light exactly where technicians need it, cutting down on missed leaks, stripped fasteners from poor visibility, and general eye strain during long jobs. We’ve added these to plenty of older Rotary and Challenger lifts during service calls simply because the shop’s ambient lighting wasn’t cutting it anymore.
These kits are inexpensive relative to almost everything else on this page and install in under an hour in most cases. If your bay lighting hasn’t been touched since the lift went in, this is one of the easiest wins available, and it’s the kind of upgrade technicians notice and appreciate immediately, which matters when you’re trying to keep good people around.
Locking Casters and Rolling Bridge Jacks for Mobile Column Setups
For shops running mobile column lifts, the accessory list looks different, and the star of the show is a good rolling bridge jack or transmission jack designed to work in the open space beneath the vehicle once it’s raised on columns. Because mobile columns leave the entire underside accessible, having a properly rated rolling support tool matters just as much here as it does with a two-post setup, and it’s one of the lift accessories worth buying that mobile column owners sometimes overlook when they’re focused on the columns themselves.
Battery backup packs and extra charging docks for the columns themselves are worth mentioning too, particularly for shops that move columns between bays or take them to off-site jobs like heavy truck and bus service. Keeping a spare charged battery on hand avoids downtime mid-job, which matters a lot more with mobile equipment than with a fixed two-post or four-post lift bolted to the floor.
What We Skip, and What We Always Recommend
Not every accessory on a supplier’s catalog page earns a spot in our recommendations. Decorative arm covers, most cup holders and phone mounts, and generic tool trays rarely get used more than a handful of times before they’re ignored or removed. When customers ask us directly what are the real lift accessories worth buying versus what’s filler, we point them toward anything that improves safety, extends the life of the lift, or genuinely speeds up daily work — jack trays, extensions, pads, alignment kits, and lighting consistently make that cut.
If you’re outfitting a car lift specifically and want a narrower list built around passenger vehicle service bays, our writeup on car lift accessories worth buying covers that ground in more detail. And if you’re still deciding between brands before you even get to accessories, our piece on car lift brands worth buying is a good place to start. Either way, we’d rather talk you out of something you don’t need than sell you something that’ll sit in a corner.
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