A Waukee Collector’s First Year With a Two Post Lift: Financing, Install, and First Service

A collector in Waukee called us in early spring with a 30×40 pole building, a concrete floor, twelve-foot sidewalls, and four vehicles he only drives between May and October. He wanted to know whether automotive two post lifts made sense for seasonal storage, and whether he could spread the cost over a year instead of writing one check. We ended up walking that project from the first phone call through install day and all the way to the twelve-month service, and it turned out to be one of the more useful case studies we have on what ownership actually looks like for a private collector. Here is the whole year, including the financing terms, the surprises, and what we would do differently.

The First Conversation: Storage Versus Service

The very first thing we asked was what he actually wanted to do with the lift, because storage and service pull in different directions. If the goal is purely parking one car above another for six months, a four-post with a rolling jack is usually the better tool. It is drive-on, it does not care much about your slab, and you can move it if you reconfigure the shop. But this collector wanted to do his own brake work, oil changes, and suspension jobs, and he wanted unobstructed access to the underside. That is a two post job, full stop. Four-post runways get in the way of exactly the work he wanted to do.

We talked through the compromise honestly. Two post storage means the vehicle hangs by its pinch welds or frame points for months, which is fine for most cars but requires you to think about where the load sits and to check the pads periodically. It also means you cannot leave the lift up and casually roll a floor jack around underneath without paying attention. He was comfortable with that. His heaviest vehicle was around 5,800 lb, so a 10,000 lb rating gave him plenty of margin. Once we settled that automotive two post lifts fit the use case, the conversation moved to the building, and that is where things got interesting.

The Building Check: Twelve-Foot Walls and a Slab of Unknown Depth

A 30×40 pole building with twelve-foot sidewalls is right at the edge for a clear-floor overhead two post. Standard columns run about eleven and a half feet to the top of the overhead beam, which technically fits, but you lose the ability to raise a tall vehicle to full height without the roof getting involved. We measured to the lowest obstruction rather than the peak, and found a purlin and a light fixture that dropped the usable clearance closer to eleven-four in the spot he wanted the lift. Moving the lift eight feet toward the center of the bay bought back the clearance.

The slab was the bigger question. Pole buildings in central Iowa get poured to wildly varying specs depending on who did the work and what year it was. His was advertised as five inches, which would have been fine, but we cored it in two spots and found closer to four and a quarter in one location. That is right at the manufacturer minimum for a 10,000 lb unit with no room for error. We recommended cutting two pads and pouring eight inches of new concrete tied into the existing slab with rebar dowels. He was not thrilled about the delay or the added cost, but he agreed, and that decision is the single reason the lift has been rock solid ever since. Anyone shopping automotive two post lifts for a pole building should budget for this possibility up front.

How the Financing Actually Worked

He did not want to pay cash all at once, which is completely normal and something we handle regularly. Equipment financing for a lift is straightforward because the lift itself is the collateral and it holds value. For a private buyer rather than a business, the options generally come down to three paths: a lender-backed equipment loan, a manufacturer or dealer financing program, or simply a low-rate personal line of credit from his own bank. We laid out all three and did not push him toward any particular one.

He ended up on a 36-month equipment loan with roughly ten percent down at signing. The payment schedule was straightforward: the down payment covered the deposit that released the lift from the distributor, and the first monthly payment started thirty days after delivery, not after install. That distinction matters. Because his concrete work pushed the install out by about three weeks, he made one payment before he could actually use the equipment. If we had it to do again, we would have sequenced the concrete first and ordered the lift second so the timelines lined up. Total monthly cost for a home-grade 10,000 lb unit financed over three years typically lands in the low-to-mid three-figure range, which most collectors find easier to absorb than a single large outlay. Installation and concrete were paid separately at completion.

Install Day: What Actually Happened

Install on a two post in a prepared building is generally a one-day job for our crew, and this one was. The columns came off the truck, we laid out the anchor pattern against the new pads, drilled, set the anchors to torque spec, plumbed the columns, ran the hydraulic line and equalization cables, filled and bled the power unit, and cycled the lift empty a dozen times before anything with a title went on it. The whole thing took about seven hours including the shimming, which is the part that always takes longer than people expect.

Shimming is where a lot of DIY installs go sideways. Even a good slab is not perfectly level, and both columns have to be plumb within a tight tolerance or the carriages bind and the cables wear unevenly. We use steel shims under the base plates and check plumb in two axes with a machinist level, then re-torque the anchors after the first few full cycles. The collector had been planning to install it himself to save money, which is a completely reasonable instinct, but after watching the shim and torque process he told us he was glad he did not. This is the part of owning automotive two post lifts that separates a unit that runs quietly for fifteen years from one that starts groaning at month eight. If you want the details, our article on the lift installation process covers each step.

Living With It Through an Iowa Winter

The first real test came in November when he put a summer car up and left it there. Unheated pole buildings in central Iowa swing from ninety degrees in August to below zero in January, and hydraulic fluid does not love that. The power unit slowed noticeably on cold mornings — not a fault, just cold oil moving through the pump. We had specified a fluid appropriate for the temperature range, which helped, but he still learned to cycle the lift once before loading it on a cold day so the fluid warms and circulates.

The other winter lesson was about the arm restraints and the safety locks. Condensation forms on cold steel every time the temperature swings, and surface rust starts on the lock ladders and the arm restraint gears if nobody touches them for four months. He now wipes and lightly lubricates the lock mechanisms in the fall before storage and again when he pulls the car down in spring. Total effort is maybe fifteen minutes. He also learned not to leave the vehicle at full height all winter — parking it at a mid-height position on the locks reduces the load on the cables and makes it easier to check the pad contact points periodically. None of this is unique to his setup; it applies to any automotive two post lifts in an unconditioned Iowa building.

The Twelve-Month Service Call

We came back the following spring for the first annual inspection. On a lightly used home lift, we expected to find almost nothing, and mostly we did not. The anchors held torque. The cables had settled slightly, which is completely normal in the first year as everything seats, so we adjusted the equalization to bring both carriages back to matching heights. The hydraulic fluid was clean. The safety locks engaged crisply on both columns.

The one thing we did find was wear on the rubber pads, which had taken a set from holding the same vehicle at the same contact points for six straight months. That is expected and the pads are inexpensive consumables. We swapped them and recommended he rotate which vehicle goes up for winter storage so the same pads are not compressed identically year after year. An annual inspection on automotive two post lifts is not optional in a commercial shop, and while a private owner is not held to ANSI/ALI inspection requirements the same way, we tell every home customer the same thing: have somebody who knows what they are looking at put eyes on it once a year. It takes about an hour and it catches cable wear and anchor issues long before they become a problem. Our piece on two post lift maintenance lists what we check.

What We Would Tell the Next Waukee Collector

Sequence the concrete before you order the equipment. That is the single biggest thing we would change about this project. Core the slab, get the pads poured and cured, and then take delivery so your first loan payment lands on a lift you can actually use. Second, spend the money on the taller column option if your building will take it. He is happy with his setup, but he has mentioned twice that another eight inches of rise would have made oil changes on the tallest vehicle in the collection more comfortable, and that upgrade costs far less at order time than it does never.

Third, be honest with yourself about storage versus service. If you are genuinely only stacking cars, a four-post with a rolling jack is cheaper, easier on the slab, and does not require perfect concrete. If you want real underside access for actual wrenching, two post is the right tool and worth the extra preparation. We install both across central Iowa, and we would rather tell you the four-post is your answer than sell you the wrong thing. Financing makes either one manageable for most collectors, and the equipment holds its value well enough that it is not a decision you have to get perfect on the first try. Call us and we will walk your building with you before anybody spends anything. If you are weighing both, our two post versus four post comparison is a good starting point.