Automotive Two Post Lifts in Cedar Falls: Used vs New, With Real Numbers

A truck shop owner in Cedar Falls called us in January with a straightforward pitch: he did not want to spend big money on a lift. He’d found a used unit a few hours away, no data plate, seller said it worked fine, and he wanted to know if we’d install it. That conversation turned into a two-week cost exercise comparing used and new automotive two post lifts line by line — purchase, freight, rigging, parts, concrete, electrical, install, and inspection. He is not the first person to assume used saves money on lift equipment, and the numbers surprised him. Here is the whole breakdown, because we think more shop owners should see it before they wire a deposit to a stranger.

What He Was Actually Doing With It

His shop runs fluid service — oil changes, transmission and differential service, coolant flushes — on everything from half-ton pickups to medium-duty box trucks and the occasional service body. High volume, fast turns, drain-and-fill work where the tech is under the vehicle with a pump and a barrel for eight or ten minutes at a time. That workflow puts specific demands on the equipment: he needs full rise so a six-foot-two tech stands upright under a truck frame, he needs arms that reach a long wheelbase, and he needs locks he trusts, because somebody is under there all day every day.

Capacity was the first thing we sized. His heaviest regular vehicle was around 11,500 lb loaded, and he occasionally sees more. We do not recommend running near the ceiling of a lift’s rating, so 10,000 lb was off the table immediately and we scoped 15,000 and 18,000 lb units. That’s a different market than the light-duty automotive two post lifts most used listings represent — the cheap secondhand inventory out there is almost entirely 9,000 and 10,000 lb passenger-car equipment, which is exactly wrong for a truck shop. Right there, the used pool shrank by ninety percent.

The Used Lift He Found, Inspected Honestly

We drove out with him. The unit was a heavy-duty two post, no legible data plate, sitting disassembled in a barn. Columns looked structurally sound — no cracks at the base plates, no obvious impact damage. Then we got into the details. Both equalizer cables showed broken strands near the sheaves. One sheave didn’t spin freely. The hydraulic cylinder had a wet rod and a puddle history on the concrete under it. Lock pawls were worn enough that engagement was inconsistent by hand. No overhead crossbar hardware. No arm restraint gears on two of the four arms. No manual, no ALI certification label, no serial to look up.

None of that makes it scrap. All of it is repairable. But repairable means parts, and parts on an unidentified lift means we’re measuring cable length and cylinder bore with calipers and cross-referencing until we find a match. We do that work every week for customers and we’re good at it, but it takes time and it costs money. Two cables, two sheaves, a cylinder reseal or replacement, four lock pawls, two restraint gear sets, and the missing overhead hardware added up to a number well over half of what the seller wanted for the whole lift. That’s the trap with used automotive two post lifts: the sticker is the smallest part of the bill.

Freight, Rigging, and the Hidden Logistics

A new lift arrives on a truck, palletized, with a lift gate or a forklift unload arranged in advance. Freight into the Cedar Valley on a 15,000 lb two post is a few hundred dollars, and it shows up as a line on a quote before you commit.

A used lift in a barn three hours away is your problem to move. Those columns run several hundred pounds apiece. You need a trailer rated for it, straps, a forklift or skid loader on both ends, and at least two people who know how to lay a column down without bending a carriage. He was going to borrow a flatbed and use the seller’s tractor, which is how columns get dropped. Then there’s the day of labor, the fuel, and the fact that when you get it home you own whatever’s wrong with it.

We priced that honestly: trailer rental, fuel, two people for a full day, and rigging help on the receiving end. It came to real money — not catastrophic, but enough that combined with the parts list, the used unit was already close to the delivered cost of a new mid-tier lift. And the used one came with no warranty, no certification, and an unknown service history. When we lay out the total project cost on automotive two post lifts, freight and rigging is the line customers forget every single time.

Concrete and Electrical Don’t Care Which One You Buy

Here’s the part that finally moved him. Roughly a third of this project’s cost had nothing to do with the lift at all. His slab was a 1980s pour, thickness unknown until we cored it, and a 15,000 lb column needs more concrete under it than a 10,000 lb one — typically six inches minimum at the specified strength, and heavier units often call for engineered footings.

We cored and found inconsistent thickness, four and a half inches in one spot. That means cutting and pouring two footing pads, doweled into the existing slab, then a full seven-day cure before anybody torques an anchor. Electrical was similar: his available drop wouldn’t carry the power unit he needed, so a licensed electrician had to run a new 220V circuit to the column location.

Those costs are identical whether the lift is used or new. So the real comparison is not “cheap used lift versus expensive new lift.” It’s “a project where two-thirds of the spend is fixed, and the variable third determines whether you get a warranty and a certified, documented installation or you don’t.” Framed that way, saving a fraction on the crate to inherit worn cables and an unknown cylinder is a bad trade. Our article on concrete requirements for car lifts covers the slab side in depth.

The Framework We Give Everybody

We install used equipment regularly and we’re not against it. But we apply four filters. First: is it identifiable? A legible data plate, serial number, and a manufacturer still supporting parts. If we can’t identify it, walk away unless the price is near-scrap.

Second: is it the right capacity and configuration for your actual work? A cheap 9,000 lb unit is not a bargain for a truck shop, it’s a liability. Third: can you inspect it under power, loaded? A lift that cycles with a vehicle on it, locks audibly at every notch, and holds level tells you far more than photos in a barn. Fourth: price out every wear item as if it needs replacing — cables, sheaves, cylinder, locks, restraints, hoses — and add that to the ask. If the total lands within twenty percent of a new comparable unit, buy new.

Used makes real sense in a narrow band: a recent-model, identifiable lift from a shop that closed, with documented service and cables you can inspect, at genuinely low money. We’ve placed several of those. It rarely makes sense on heavy-duty automotive two post lifts, because the heavy inventory that comes to market has usually been run hard for two decades. Our used car lift inspection checklist is what we walk with when we look at one.

What He Bought and What It Cost

He bought new — a 15,000 lb clearfloor unit with truck-length arms, three-stage front arms for reach, and a full-rise carriage that put his tech upright under a box truck frame. We won’t publish exact figures, but the tiers were these. The lift itself: low five figures for a heavy-duty two post from a top-tier brand, meaningfully more than the 10,000 lb passenger-car units. Freight: a few hundred. Concrete footings and cure: comparable to the install labor. Electrical: several hundred. Professional install with torque documentation and an ALI-standard checkout: low four figures for a unit this size.

Total project landed above his original number and below what he’d have spent chasing parts for the barn find, once the honest repair list was added in. More to the point, he got a warranty, a certified installation, a documented anchor torque log, and a parts pipeline. Eighteen months in, the only thing he’s called about is a routine cable tension check. For a shop doing fluid service eight hours a day, the difference between good and questionable automotive two post lifts isn’t a feature list — it’s whether a tech under a loaded truck ever has to think about it. That’s what he was actually buying. If you’re weighing the same decision, call us at 800-674-9302 and we’ll price the whole project, not just the crate. See also our two post lift buying guide.