A mobile mechanic based in Sioux City reached out to us about auto storage lifts for his new shop last fall. He wanted to move off his driveway and finally rent a small building where he could pull oil pans on customer trucks without fighting a floor jack and cribbing all winter. Simple ask, complicated site. His new space had a heaved slab from three decades of freeze-thaw and a ceiling that changed height across the bay. Below is the case study from that install, from the first phone call through the first oil pan gasket job he ran on the lifts a week after we finished.
Site visits within about a two-hour drive of Ames are free. Sioux City is a day trip.
The first phone call
The initial call took twelve minutes. He described the space as roughly 24 by 40 with unknown slab, some kind of gas heater in the corner, and a garage door tall enough for a dually. He wanted two auto storage lifts side by side so he could hold a customer truck overnight while he waited on parts and still work on a second vehicle. He did not know the ceiling height. He did not know the slab thickness. He did not know the electrical service. That is the normal starting point for most first-time buyers, and it is fine. What we needed to know before quoting anything was whether the space could physically support what he wanted. We booked a site visit for the following Tuesday.
The site survey
The Sioux City space had three problems and two things going for it. Problems: the slab had a two-inch drop across the length of the bay from a decades-old heave, the ceiling was 10 feet 8 inches at the low point where a beam crossed, and the 100-amp panel had exactly one open double-pole breaker. What worked: the concrete was six inches thick, poured on a compacted base, and the garage door opened to a paved alley wide enough for our delivery truck. We measured, took photos of every wall, sketched the layout on graph paper, and shot a quick video of the ceiling structure so we could review it back at the shop. The site visit ran about ninety minutes and cost him nothing.
The lift we recommended
The heaved slab ruled out taller 4-post auto storage lifts because the runway would have sat crooked and stressed the columns unevenly. We spec’d a lower-rise pair of BendPak PL-6KP-DT parking lifts, ALI Gold certified, 6,000-pound rated per unit. The lower stack height cleared the 10 foot 8 inch beam with room for a mid-size pickup on top. The parking lift geometry tolerated the slab drop within acceptable range once we shimmed the columns per the install manual. We ran the electrical load through the panel and confirmed the single open breaker would carry both units on a shared circuit since they are not operated simultaneously in a storage application. Total quote arrived by email 48 hours after the site visit.
Install day mechanics
Delivery hit the alley at 8:15 on a Wednesday. Two techs and one lead moved the crates into the bay with a pallet jack in about twenty minutes. Anchor layout, drilling, and epoxy-set of the wedge anchors took the first ninety minutes. We test-torqued each anchor before setting a column. Column raise, cable routing, and hydraulic connection was another two and a half hours. First cycle test ran empty; second cycle test ran with our shop truck on the platform to load the cables. Final adjustment for the shim stack under the four columns closed out the day at 4:30. Cleanup and paperwork took another thirty minutes. Total install: one long day for two auto storage lifts, on schedule.
The first oil pan job on the new lifts
He called us a week after the install. First real job was a 2014 F-150 5.0 with a leaking oil pan gasket. He raised the truck to full height, dropped the exhaust crossover, pulled the oil pan, cleaned the sealing surface, laid a new gasket, and buttoned it up. Total time on the lift about four hours. His comment on the phone was that the job took less than half the time it used to take on jack stands, and his back was not sore at the end of the day. That is what auto storage lifts do for a mobile mechanic finally moving into a fixed shop. The oil pan job on jack stands is a two-day project when you count the setup. On a lift it is an afternoon.
What we would do differently next time
Two lessons from this install. First, we should have flagged the panel capacity earlier in the process; we caught it during the site visit but a phone-only quote could have missed it and put him in an ugly spot on install day. We now ask for a photo of the panel on every first call. Second, we underestimated the shim stack height because the slab heave was slightly worse in one corner than the tape measure showed on visit day. We had shims on the truck, so it did not cost time, but we now bring a longer level and check three points across the bay before setting anchors.
How to run the same play for your shop
If you are moving from mobile work into a fixed bay and thinking about auto storage lifts, do the same three things. Call and describe the space in whatever level of detail you have. Host a site visit or send a video walk-through if you are outside our drive range. Do not order equipment until someone has actually seen the ceiling, the slab, and the panel. See our related writeup on planning a garage build-out around a lift for the full sequence. Call 800-674-9302 to schedule a site visit or start a quote.
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