BendPak XPR-10AS in Davenport: A First-Year Ownership Story on Cable Care

A BendPak XPR-10AS in Davenport went from crate to daily workhorse for an RV and trailer service shop that had been doing suspension and shock jobs on floor jacks and stands for years. The owner wanted something that could handle a loaded travel trailer axle without drama, and the 10,000 lb overhead lift fit the bay and the budget better than anything else on the list. What nobody talked about much before the install, though, was what happens after the first year — specifically how fast the lifting cables wear when you’re constantly cycling heavy suspension components, and how a simple inspection routine keeps the whole system safe.

Why an RV and Trailer Shop Chose the XPR-10AS

Suspension and shock work on trailers and small RVs is brutal on equipment that wasn’t built for asymmetric loading and repeated up-and-down cycling. The shop we worked with in Davenport had tried getting by with a lower-capacity lift borrowed from a neighboring garage, and it just wasn’t cutting it once bigger travel trailers and toy haulers started showing up. The BendPak XPR-10AS gave them 10,000 lbs of capacity with an asymmetric column layout that opens up door clearance, which matters a lot when you’re wrestling wheel wells and shock towers instead of a standard pickup.

We walked the owner through why the asymmetric configuration made more sense than a symmetric model for their bay layout, since most of their vehicles need extra swing room on the driver’s side to get doors open during teardown. The telescoping arms and dual-point locking also matter here — suspension jobs mean lifting from non-standard points more often than a typical oil change shop, and the XPR-10AS’s arm reach handles that without forcing awkward pad placement. A year in, the owner told us it was the single best equipment decision they’d made, mostly because it let them quote suspension jobs they used to turn away.

The First Service Call: What We Found on the Cables

Roughly ten months after install, the shop called us in for a routine check ahead of their first scheduled maintenance. This is typical — most two post lift owners don’t think about cables until something feels off, and by then wear can already be advanced. On this particular BendPak XPR-10AS, we found the cables in generally good shape, but noticed early fraying starting at the pulley contact points on the side that saw the most asymmetric loading from heavier trailer axles.

That’s a pattern we see often in shops doing suspension work: the load isn’t always centered, so one cable path takes more abuse than the others over time. It’s not a defect in the lift, it’s just physics. We recommended tightening up the inspection interval from the standard six-month check to a quarterly visual inspection, especially during months when the shop was running back-to-back trailer suspension jobs. The owner appreciated knowing this before it became a safety issue rather than after.

Cable Inspection Intervals That Actually Match Real Use

BendPak’s documentation recommends inspecting lift cables at every safety inspection, generally every six months for average commercial use. But average use assumes fairly even, centered loading — which isn’t what happens in a shop built around suspension and shock replacement. We tell every Iowa customer running a BendPak XPR-10AS in this kind of work to treat the six-month number as a ceiling, not a target.

In practice, that means a quick visual check every 30 days looking for fraying, kinks, or flat spots on the cable, plus a full inspection with the lift unloaded every 90 days where we check cable tension equalization across both columns. If one side is noticeably looser than the other, that’s your early warning sign before a cable actually fails. We also recommend logging these checks — a simple clipboard sheet by the lift works fine — so if BendPak’s warranty team or an insurance inspector ever asks, you have a paper trail showing the lift was maintained on schedule.

What Cable Replacement Actually Looks Like on This Lift

When cables do need replacing on a BendPak XPR-10AS, it’s not a full-day teardown if you’ve got the right parts on hand. The lift uses a set of equalized cables running through the columns, and replacing one properly means replacing both on that axis together to keep tension matched — swapping just the worn one throws off the equalization and creates a new wear pattern almost immediately.

We stock BendPak-compatible cable sets sized for the XPR-10AS specifically, because generic cable isn’t always rated for the same working load or cut to the right length for this column height. For the Davenport shop, we scheduled the cable swap during a slow week so the bay wasn’t down during their busy season, and had them back in operation the same afternoon. That’s the advantage of catching wear early through regular inspection — it turns into a planned maintenance job instead of an emergency shutdown mid-project.

Floor Anchoring and Why It Affects Cable Life Too

Something people don’t always connect: a lift that isn’t anchored perfectly level can put uneven strain on its cables over time, accelerating the exact wear pattern we found in Davenport. When we installed this BendPak XPR-10AS, we checked the slab for level across the full footprint, not just at the four anchor points, because even a slight tilt changes how weight transfers through the arms and up into the cable system.

For an RV and trailer shop specifically, this matters more than average because the vehicles being lifted are longer and heavier than a typical passenger car, which means more leverage on any imperfection in the install. We shimmed the base plates during install to correct for a minor slab pitch we found, and that’s likely part of why the cable wear we saw was moderate rather than severe for a shop running this much suspension work. It’s a good reminder that cable health starts at the install, not just at the maintenance appointment.

Training the Team to Catch Problems Early

Equipment lasts longer when the people using it every day know what to look for, so part of our first-year visit to this shop was a short walkthrough with the technicians on what cable wear looks like before it becomes dangerous. We showed them how to spot fraying at the pulley, how to check for uneven cable tension by eye, and when to stop using the lift and call us instead of trying to push through a job.

This kind of training pays off fast in a shop doing suspension and shock work, where technicians are already under the vehicle more than most and have more opportunity to notice something off. The Davenport shop now does a five-minute visual check at the start of every shift as part of their opening routine, which costs them nothing in time but has already caught one early-wear cable before it became a real problem. That’s the kind of habit we try to build into every BendPak XPR-10AS install we do in Iowa.

What We’d Tell Anyone Buying an XPR-10AS for This Kind of Work

If you’re running an RV or trailer service operation and considering a BendPak XPR-10AS, plan for the cable inspection schedule before you plan for the install date. Suspension and shock work puts asymmetric, repetitive loads on a lift in a way that standard maintenance intervals don’t fully anticipate, and the shops that get the longest service life out of this equipment are the ones who inspect more often than the manual technically requires.

We’ve installed and serviced these lifts across eastern Iowa, and the Davenport shop’s first year is a good case study in what happens when you pair solid equipment with a maintenance habit that actually fits the work being done. If you want a similar setup and a maintenance plan tailored to your specific use case, we’re glad to walk through it with you and get you set up with the right cable inventory before you need it, not after.

For more on related equipment decisions, take a look at our articles on two post lift maintenance schedules and choosing between symmetric and asymmetric lift configurations for shops with mixed vehicle types.