A collector in West Des Moines with a small stable of muscle cars called us about putting a 2 post car lift in his heated shop last winter. He was not building new, he was retrofitting into a garage that already had a five-year-old slab, and his first real project once it was in the ground would be a full brake and rotor swap on a 1970 Chevelle. He wanted honest answers about whether his existing concrete was enough, what the first year would actually look like, and whether he was going to regret this in year five. This is his first-year story from anchor day to that first brake job.
Configurations that suit private collector garages with existing concrete.
Checking the Existing Slab Before We Committed
His slab was poured five years earlier when he built the shop, and he did not have documentation on thickness or rebar. Before we quoted a 2 post car lift, we core-drilled two test holes at the planned column locations. The core came back at four and three-quarters inches thick, with number four rebar at mid-depth on 12-inch centers. That is honestly better concrete than a lot of newer shops have, and it was more than adequate for a 10,000 lb two-post. If the core had come back at four inches flat with no rebar, we would have had a longer conversation. The core check turned a guess into a documented number, and that number let us proceed with confidence.
Why Rebar Matters More Than People Realize
Concrete without rebar handles compression well and tension badly. The base plates of a 2 post car lift transfer downward compression and lateral pull as the vehicle loads and unloads the arms. Rebar in the slab holds the concrete together against that lateral pull and against freeze-thaw cycles that Iowa slabs see every winter. On the West Des Moines customer’s slab, the mid-depth rebar grid meant every anchor was pulling against a reinforced substrate. Five years post-pour, the concrete was fully cured and stronger than day-one PSI. That combination gave us a very forgiving install environment.
The Install Weekend
We installed on a Saturday because he wanted to be on site for the whole thing. The 2 post car lift was uncrated in his driveway, columns walked in on pipe rollers, and we laid out the base plate positions with chalk and a rotary laser to get parallel. Anchor holes were drilled with a vacuum-collected bit to keep his heated floor clean. Columns were stood, plumbed, cable-strung, hydraulically tied, and cycled through their first ten cycles under our supervision. We do not leave a customer’s shop until the lift has done ten full cycles with locks engaging at every position and cables staying taut. That took us until early evening.
Learning the Lift in the First Month
He used the lift lightly for the first month, mostly getting a feel for the drive-on, drive-off geometry with his mix of vehicles. A short-wheelbase Chevelle sits differently on a 2 post car lift than his long-wheelbase pickup. He learned to slide the arms carefully under the frame rails on the Chevelle to protect the rocker pinch weld. He learned to check tire clearance to the columns before raising. He learned to walk around the vehicle once at chest height before going up to the lock. These are the habits every first-year owner develops and they are the difference between a safe shop and an unsafe one.
The First Real Brake and Rotor Job
At month three he pulled the Chevelle up on the lift for a full brake and rotor swap. The car had been sitting on jack stands for the previous rotor job years earlier, and the difference was immediate. All four wheels came off in under twenty minutes because he was standing up, not lying down. Rotor swaps went easy. Caliper bracket bolts that used to fight him were reachable with a proper breaker bar and body position. The bleed sequence went smooth because the pedal was reachable from a step stool at his own comfortable height. Total job dropped from a weekend to a Saturday afternoon.
The Six-Month and Twelve-Month Check
We came back at six months and again at twelve months to inspect his 2 post car lift. Six-month check showed all anchors still in torque spec, cables clean, locks cycling crisp. Twelve-month check showed the same, with a small note that one hydraulic fitting had a very light weep that we tightened a quarter turn. That is the kind of thing that catches early on a scheduled check and never becomes a problem. If he had waited until the fitting was dripping he would have lost fluid, air would have entered the system, and he would be bleeding lines instead of enjoying his shop.
Advice for Any Collector Considering a Lift
If you are a collector thinking about a 2 post car lift for a shop with existing concrete, do the core check before you order the lift. It costs very little relative to the equipment and it gives you a real answer instead of a guess. Then plan the install with a professional crew, not a friend and a floor jack. Get the six-month and twelve-month checks. Every one of these steps compounds into a lift that will still be running in twenty years the same way it ran the day it went in. Call us at 800-674-9302 if you want us to run the core check and quote in one visit.
Related reading: our slab thickness guide, our home garage lift buyer’s guide, and our annual inspection walkthrough.
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