BendPak XPR-10AS: A Collector’s First Year, From Slab to First Wheel Bearing Job

The BendPak XPR-10AS is the lift we point most collector-car owners toward when they call us from around the Iowa-Missouri border asking what will actually hold up to years of hobby-shop use, and this is the story of one of those garages from the week the concrete truck showed up through the first wheel bearing job a year later. The owner had four vehicles rotating through a pole barn, more patience than most, and a healthy fear of getting the slab wrong. We get that call a lot. Getting the pad right is 90 percent of getting the lift right, and it’s the part nobody thinks about until we’re standing in an empty garage with a tape measure and a bad feeling.

Why the Slab Conversation Comes Before the Lift Conversation

Before we ever talk about arm configuration or rise height, we ask about the floor, because a BendPak XPR-10AS anchored into a thin or cracked slab is a liability no matter how good the lift itself is. BendPak’s engineering calls for a minimum of 4 inches of properly cured, unreinforced or reinforced concrete rated around 3,000 PSI, and that number assumes the anchors land in solid material, not into an old crack that’s been patched over. In this owner’s case, the existing pole barn floor was only 3.5 inches in one corner where a previous frost heave had been leveled with a thin overlay, and it wasn’t going to work for a 10,000 lb column lift without intervention.

We ended up recommending a cut-out and repour in that corner rather than trying to shim or float the columns, and the owner also asked about rebar since the shop sits close to a known frost line along the border counties. Rebar isn’t strictly required by BendPak’s spec if you hit the thickness and PSI target, but in ground that heaves seasonally, a light rebar grid or fiber-mesh reinforcement gives the pad more resistance to the freeze-thaw cracking that eventually loosens anchor bolts over years, not months. We’d rather have that conversation with a customer before the truck pours than after we’re back out re-torquing anchors two winters later.

Install Day: What Actually Happens With a BendPak XPR-10AS

On install day, our crew set the base plates, checked column plumb with a level on both faces, and squared the runway using the manufacturer’s spacing chart rather than eyeballing it off the old lift’s bolt pattern, which is a mistake we see a lot in used-equipment installs. The XPR-10AS uses an asymmetric arm setup designed to keep the vehicle’s center of gravity more toward the front-facing side of the bay, which matters in a garage storing multiple collector vehicles with different wheelbases where drive-through clearance changes car to car.

We torqued every anchor to spec, ran the lift up and down empty a dozen times watching cable and equalization behavior, then loaded it with a daily driver before handing it to the owner. The whole install, from base plate to signed-off walkthrough, took about half a day once the slab issue was resolved. That’s typical for a straightforward two post install once the floor is right, and it’s the exact reason we insist on seeing photos or specs of the floor before we quote install pricing over the phone.

The First Real Job: Wheel Bearing Service on a Collector Car

The first real service job on this lift wasn’t an oil change, it was a wheel bearing replacement on one of the older cars in the collection, and that’s a good test case for why the arm geometry on the XPR-10AS matters. Wheel bearing work means pulling a wheel entirely off the ground, often removing a caliper and hub assembly, and needing the vehicle stable and high enough to work comfortably without a jack stand fighting you underneath. The 10,000 lb capacity gave plenty of margin, and the adjustable arm restraints let the owner position pads under factory lift points without fighting arm length on a car with an unusual wheelbase for its era.

What stood out to the owner afterward was how little the lift moved or settled under an offset load with one corner unloaded during the bearing swap, a scenario that stresses the equalization cable system more than a symmetric load does. That’s a direct result of a properly leveled slab and correctly torqued anchors from install day. A lift can be engineered well and still behave badly if the foundation underneath it is inconsistent, which circles right back to why we spend so much time on concrete before we spend any time on hydraulics.

Living With It: Twelve Months of Hobby-Shop Use

Over the following year, the lift saw everything from oil changes to a full brake job to that wheel bearing service, and the owner started keeping a simple maintenance log after we suggested it during the walkthrough. Cable tension gets checked, arm pins get greased, and the safety locks get tested every service, which takes maybe five minutes and catches small issues before they become expensive ones. That kind of light discipline is what separates lifts that run smooth for fifteen years from ones that develop a limp by year three.

We also fielded a few calls that first year about small things: a squeak in the arm swing, a question about footpad wear on smooth garage tile, and a request for the correct grease specification for the columns. None of it was a warranty issue, all of it was normal break-in behavior for a lift getting used regularly instead of sitting idle, which is honestly the best kind of first year a two post lift can have.

Anchoring in Older Slabs and Frost-Prone Ground

Because this shop sits near the frost line along the Iowa-Missouri border, anchor selection mattered more than it might in a newer commercial building downstate. We used wedge anchors rated for the specific PSI of the repoured section rather than defaulting to whatever came in the box, and we spaced them per BendPak’s chart rather than tightening the pattern to compensate for questionable concrete. If the ground under a slab moves seasonally, anchors set into thin or compromised concrete are the first thing to fail, long before anything on the lift itself gives out.

We also walked the owner through what re-inspection should look like every year or two: checking for hairline cracks radiating from anchor points, confirming no water is tracking under the base plates, and re-torquing anything that’s backed off even slightly. None of this is unique to the XPR-10AS, but it’s the kind of maintenance conversation that rarely happens at the point of sale and absolutely should, especially for anyone storing vehicles they care about on a lift that’s going to see fifteen or twenty years of service.

Why a Collector Chose the XPR-10AS Over Cheaper Alternatives

The owner looked at a couple of import lifts online before calling us, and the price gap was real, but so was the gap in documentation, parts availability, and the fact that BendPak has an actual U.S. support and warranty structure behind the equipment. For a hobby garage storing vehicles that aren’t cheap to replace, that difference matters more than a few hundred dollars saved upfront. We also pointed out that the asymmetric column design and drive-through clearance on the BendPak XPR-10AS work well in a garage layout where you’re constantly repositioning different vehicles rather than running one car through a fixed bay all day.

The other factor was arm reach. Some of the vehicles in this particular collection have unusual factory lift points, and the telescoping arm design gave enough adjustability to find solid pad contact without needing extension blocks or improvised pucks. That’s a small detail that ends up mattering constantly in year-round use, especially for collector vehicles where the owner is protective of frame contact points and paint.

What We’d Tell Anyone Considering This Lift for Home or Collector Use

If you’re weighing a BendPak XPR-10AS for a hobby garage, start with the floor, not the lift. Get an honest read on your slab thickness and condition before you fall in love with a spec sheet, because the best lift in the world can’t compensate for four inches of thirty-year-old cracked concrete. We’d also encourage anyone near the frost line to have a real conversation about rebar or fiber mesh reinforcement rather than assuming minimum PSI alone will carry you through twenty Iowa winters.

Beyond that, the XPR-10AS earns its reputation with normal use the way this collector’s install has shown: solid arm geometry for varied vehicles, a 10,000 lb capacity with real margin for wheel bearing and brake work, and a support structure that answers the phone when something needs a part or a question. If you want a walkthrough of what your specific slab and garage layout would need, that’s a conversation we have every week, and we’d rather have it with you before the concrete truck shows up than after.