When a racing team crew chief on the Iowa-Nebraska border called us in the middle of the offseason about bendpak 4 post lifts, the question was not really about which platform — it was about how to pay for it without eating the season’s parts budget. Suspension and shock work is the crew’s bread and butter, and losing a full weekend of setup time because you are wrenching on jack stands is not an option in a competitive series. This article walks through the way we quote financed 4-post platforms for racing teams: what the platforms actually cost delivered and installed, what deferred and zero-percent programs look like right now, how to size a platform to shock and coilover work, and how to think about the monthly payment against the labor hours it saves you.
Financing available with zero percent APR for twelve months and ninety-day payment deferral options on qualifying platforms, delivered and installed across the Midwest.
Why a 4-post makes sense for a race team, not a 2-post
Race teams often ask us for a two-post lift because it looks like the tool the fabrication shops on television use. For dedicated suspension and shock swaps at a race shop, we usually push crew chiefs toward bendpak 4 post lifts instead. The reason is workflow. A 4-post platform lets you drive on with the car already loaded on scale plates, get to shock height, drop the rolling jacks under the axles, and pull all four corners without ever asking the technician to fight the arm setup on a two-post. The corner-weighting work you do at the end of a build stays intact through the lift cycle, which matters when the car goes back on the scales for a final read.
The second reason is storage. Race weekends end in trailers full of tools, spare rims, and swap parts, and a 4-post doubles as a parking surface between events. The shop floor stays clear, and the primary chassis stays off the wheels during long storage stretches, which is exactly what your tire manufacturer would like you to do if you asked them. A two-post cannot do any of that.
What race teams actually spend on a 4-post install
Budget conversations with race teams tend to sort into three buckets. A weekend club team with one car and a modest shop lands on a residential-tier 4-post in the low five-figures delivered. A regional team running two cars and a pit rig lands on a light-commercial platform with rolling jacks, air-line kits, and drip trays. A pro-level team lands on a full commercial-height platform with an alignment kit built in. bendpak 4 post lifts populate all three tiers and are one of the most commonly financed platforms we sell to race teams on the Iowa-Nebraska border. The nice thing about picking a widely available platform is that when you upgrade, the used market for the platform you are leaving is thick, so trade-out is straightforward.
Freight matters here. From the west-coast warehouse to a shop on the border is a real number, and we build it into every quote transparently. Install on a bolt-in platform in a slab-ready shop is a single day for our two-technician crew. Teams that want to be running by the first test session of the season should book the install six to eight weeks out, especially in the winter when we book fast.
The financing options we run through First Business Bank
Our financing partner offers a zero percent APR program for twelve months with a ninety-day payment deferral on qualifying equipment. In practice, that means a race team that orders bendpak 4 post lifts in December will not make a payment until the following spring — which is exactly when sponsor money and entry fees start showing up. After the promotional period, extended terms run in the six-to-nine percent range depending on credit and term length. For a team that would rather spread payment across a full season, the extended plan turns a real capital purchase into a predictable monthly line item.
The application itself is short. We send the lender a signed quote from us, the buyer sends the lender a one-page application with basic business or personal financials, and approval typically comes back the same or next business day. We handle the coordination in the middle so the customer is not chasing paperwork between two vendors. If a team wants to pay cash for part and finance the rest — for example, financing the platform and paying cash for the rolling jacks — that split works fine, and we structure the quote so the finance portion sits by itself on its own line item.
Sizing capacity and rise for shock and coilover work
For a race shop doing suspension and shock replacement, the sweet spot is a 9,000-pound-class platform with a rise tall enough to walk under, and rolling jacks rated for the axle weights you actually pick up. Most road-race, drag, and short-track vehicles are well under the 9K capacity number. Rise is where we push teams to spec higher: an extra six or eight inches at the top of the runway pays back in reduced back strain over hundreds of shock changes across a season.
Runway length is another consideration for race teams. Long tow-vehicle chassis and open-wheel car chassis do not want the same runway length, and neither does a Sprint Cup-style stock car. We spec runway length off your actual car list, not off the assumption that all race cars are compact. bendpak 4 post lifts come in a range of runway lengths, so we usually can find something in the catalog that fits without a custom order — and the standard runway lengths are the ones that resell easily later, which matters when the team moves to a bigger shop.
Rolling jacks, air lines, and the accessory line items that matter
Two rolling jacks are non-negotiable for race work — you cannot do proper suspension R&R without them, and a floor jack rolled across the runways is a shortcut that damages the platform. We also strongly recommend an air-line kit routed to the top of both front columns. Air impact and air ratchet work at the corner of the car during shock swaps is much faster with plumbed air than with dragging a hose across the shop floor. On a busy race shop, that saved time is real money across a season of setup changes.
Alignment kits are optional but common. A dedicated alignment 4-post gives you a slip-plate front and rear turnplate setup so that when you finish a corner-weight session you can pull the front-end alignment numbers without moving the car. If you do a lot of setup passes per week, that add-on pays back quickly. If you only align once or twice a season, keeping the platform simple and sending the car to a partner shop is the cheaper choice — and we would rather tell you that than sell you a kit you do not need.
Building the payment schedule around your season
The best financing conversation we have with race teams is the one where we build the payment schedule around the sponsor money calendar. Most teams have cash flow that peaks in early spring and again at midseason, and troughs in late summer and winter. A financed purchase with a ninety-day deferral bought in December means the first payment lands right when spring cash is arriving. Extending the term to sixty or seventy-two months smooths the monthly number and keeps the shop’s operating account clean. This is the specific benefit of financing bendpak 4 post lifts through a program built for equipment rather than through a general shop credit line.
We also encourage teams to compare the financed payment against what the same money would earn deployed elsewhere in the program. If the alternative is skipping a race, hiring a fabricator, or buying a set of spec tires, the platform is often the wrong thing to defer. A 4-post is not an expense that disappears — it stays on the floor and earns its keep every single week of the season, and financed correctly it is an asset that pays back before the note matures.
How to start the conversation with our team
If you are a crew chief looking at bendpak 4 post lifts and you want to see a financed quote with delivered and installed pricing to your border-region shop, the fastest path is a phone call. We ask a short list of questions — the vehicles you lift, the shop dimensions, the slab thickness, the accessories you want — and we come back with a written quote and a lender application inside two business days. Because we install personally across the Midwest, the quote also includes the install day, not just the equipment, so there are no surprise line items after the paperwork closes.
Race teams work on tight timelines and we respect that. If you tell us the first test date on your calendar, we back-plan the freight and the install day from there so the platform is running before the car needs to be. Call 800-674-9302 or email founder@autoliftserv.com, and browse our 4-post lineup to see the platforms we finance most often.
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