Every few weeks somebody calls our shop in Ames from a farm auction, an estate sale, or a closing dealership, standing next to a two-post with a phone in one hand and a question in the other: buying a used car lift what to check before the money changes hands? It’s a fair question, and it’s one we answer more than almost anything else, because a used lift can be either the best equipment deal in your building or a pile of scrap you paid to haul twice. We install, service, and stock parts for every major lift brand across Iowa, so we’ve inspected hundreds of secondhand units — the good, the tired, and the genuinely dangerous. Here’s the walkthrough we’d give you over the phone.
Already bought it, or about to? Look up cables, arm restraints, cylinders, and lock hardware by brand and model before you commit — parts availability is often the single biggest factor in whether a used lift is worth buying at all.
Start With the Data Plate, Not the Paint
The first thing we look for isn’t rust or leaks — it’s the serial tag. On a two-post it’s usually on the powerside column near the top or behind the control box; on a four-post it’s on a column or the powerunit bay. That tag gives you manufacturer, model, capacity, and serial number, which is what unlocks everything else: the correct parts list, the installation manual, the ANSI/ALI certification status, and whether the manufacturer still exists. A shiny repaint means nothing if the plate is gone.
We’ve had people show up with a lift that looked clean and turned out to be a mid-1990s import brand that went out of business before the parts catalog ever got digitized. No cables, no lock dogs, no carriage slide blocks — you’re fabricating or scrapping. Compare that with a Rotary SPO9 or a Challenger CL10 from the same era: parts are current, manuals are downloadable, and we can have hardware on a truck this week. When someone asks us about buying a used car lift what to check first, the honest answer is parts availability, because it decides whether every other repair on the list is even possible. Photograph the tag before you negotiate and send it to us if you want a straight yes-or-no on support.
Columns, Baseplates, and the Story the Concrete Tells
Walk both columns and look at them like a structural inspector, not a buyer. You’re checking for bowing, twist, gouges from a dropped vehicle, and — the big one — cracked or pulled weld seams where the column meets the baseplate. Any deformation at that joint is a hard no. Columns are not something we repair in the field; a bent or cracked one is a replacement, and on many discontinued models that column doesn’t exist anymore.
Then look down. The concrete around the anchors tells you more about how the lift lived than the seller will. Spalling, radiating cracks, or a cone of broken slab around an anchor means it was either installed in thin or green concrete or it took an overload event. Check whether the anchors were shimmed excessively — a stack of shims under a baseplate is a sign somebody fought a sloped floor instead of grinding or grouting it. Also note anchor bolt condition: rusted, spun, or mismatched hardware gets replaced no matter what, and that’s cheap insurance. Part of buying a used car lift what to check properly means budgeting for a full new anchor set and a fresh torque spec on install day, because you cannot reuse expanded wedge anchors in the same holes. If you want more on this stage, our used car lift inspection checklist goes column by column.
Cables, Chains, and Equalization Hardware
On a two-post, the equalization cables are the single most common reason we condemn a secondhand unit — and the most common reason a lift gets sold cheap in the first place. Run your bare hand along the length of each cable (glove on if it’s obviously fuzzy). Broken strands, kinks, flat spots, corrosion bleeding out of the lay, or a cable that has gone stiff and won’t flex all mean replacement. Same story with sheaves: check that they spin freely and that the grooves aren’t worn into a V.
Four-post lifts run heavier cables over four sheave assemblies and they hide wear at the sheave crossover points, so look there specifically, up at the top of each column. Chain-driven lifts get the same scrutiny — stretched, rusty, or side-worn chain is a replacement. The good news is cables and chains are consumables with real part numbers on most allowlisted brands, and we stock them. Price a full cable set into your offer before you agree to anything, plus a set of lock dogs and springs, because the same neglect that killed the cables usually took out the locking mechanism too. A seller who says “it just needs cables” is telling you the truth about the symptom and nothing about the cause.
Hydraulics: Cylinder, Power Unit, and Every Fitting Between Them
Cycle the lift if at all possible — even empty, even just three feet. Listen to the pump. A power unit that screams, cavitates, or takes forever to build pressure is either low on fluid, sucking air, or has a worn gear set. Watch the carriages for even travel and then let it sit under load for fifteen minutes and check for creep. A lift that drifts down is leaking internally at the cylinder or bleeding past a lowering valve, and diagnosing which one is a service call, not a guess.
Look for wet spots at the cylinder rod seal, the hose ends, and the flow divider. Surface weep at a fitting is a tightening job; a rod that’s pitted or scored will chew a new seal in a month. On older inground lifts we’re a lot more cautious, because the cylinder is buried and you can’t see the containment. Anyone buying a used car lift what to check on the hydraulic side should also pull the fluid cap and look at the oil — milky means water intrusion, gritty means someone ran it dry and metal is circulating. Fluid and filters are cheap; a cylinder or a full power unit swap is not, and that number should come off the asking price.
Arms, Adapters, Restraints, and the Small Stuff That Adds Up
Swing arms take abuse. Check every pivot pin for slop, verify the arm restraint gears engage and hold, and confirm the telescoping sections slide without hammering. Missing arm restraints are a safety violation and a common shortcut on used equipment — if they’re gone or broken, that lift is not legal to run until they’re replaced. Same with the safety locks: you should hear all locks click into the same tooth as the carriage rises.
Then inventory the accessories, because they’re worth real money. A full set of pads, truck adapters, frame-contact adapters, drive-on runways, jack trays, and rolling bridges can represent a meaningful chunk of the lift’s value. We’ve watched buyers celebrate a bargain and then spend nearly the same amount replacing four missing pads and a set of stackable adapters. Ask what’s included in writing. Also confirm the overhead beam hardware, shutoff bar, and any hose covers are present — those get left bolted to the old building constantly. If you’re weighing the total against a new unit with a warranty, our used vs. new comparison lays out where the break-even usually lands for Iowa shops.
Electrical, Voltage, and Whether It Fits Your Building
A lift that’s perfect mechanically is still a bad buy if it doesn’t match your shop. Confirm the motor voltage and phase: plenty of used commercial lifts are three-phase, and if your building is single-phase 240V you’re either swapping the motor and starter or adding a converter. Neither is a disaster, but both are cost. Check the motor tag, the starter box, and whether the wiring has been butchered with wire nuts and lamp cord — we see that more than we’d like.
Measure your bay before you commit. You need slab thickness and PSI verified (most two-posts want at least four inches of 3,000 PSI concrete, some more), plus ceiling height for the overhead beam or clearance for a floorplate model, and column spacing that actually works with your door and traffic pattern. A 12,000 lb lift is wider than a 9,000, and that difference has killed more than one good deal in a tight two-bay building. This part of buying a used car lift what to check is pure homework, and it’s free — a tape measure and a core sample or a look at the original slab spec. Call us with your dimensions and we’ll tell you honestly if it fits.
Paperwork, Removal, and Getting It Installed Right
Get the manual if it exists, ask for any service records, and ask directly whether the lift has ever had an ALI certified inspection. Most used units haven’t, and that’s normal — but knowing means you can plan for an inspection after installation instead of discovering a problem with a customer’s truck in the air. If the seller is a shop that’s closing, ask what broke last and who fixed it. People generally tell you.
Then plan the move. Two-post columns are top-heavy and awkward; four-post lifts come apart into runways, columns, and crossmembers that all need to be labeled as they’re disassembled. Photograph everything before it comes down, bag the hardware by location, and keep the cables coiled loose rather than kinked. We do teardowns and relocations across Iowa, and honestly, having the disassembly done by people who will also be doing the reinstall solves half the problems before they start. Our full used car lift buying guide covers the logistics side in more detail. If you’re mid-negotiation and want a second opinion, send photos of the data plate, the cables, and the base of both columns to us and we’ll tell you what we’d pay and what we’d walk away from.
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