The first year with a new car lift automotive install is the year that decides whether the whole project was worth doing. We are Auto Lift Services out of Ames, and we recently worked with a collector in southwest Iowa (Council Bluffs area) who was building a new outbuilding specifically to store and maintain a small collection of classic muscle cars and a couple of daily drivers. Everything about the project came down to sequencing: what he decided first, what he ordered when, and how the slab, the lift, and the shop layout came together over the course of about eight months. What follows is that story, generalized, so you can use it as a template for your own build.
Collectors need lifts that store vehicles safely for months at a time. Our 4-posts are matched to your ceiling and your car mix.
Month one: picking the right car lift automotive for a collector
The first month was spent on decisions, not construction. The collector had four cars he wanted to fit in the new building plus room for a daily driver and one workspace. He had not yet decided whether to buy one 4-post storage lift, two 4-post storage lifts, or a 4-post plus a 2-post combination. We walked through the vehicle list (two full-size classic sedans, a mid-size coupe, and a modern F-150) and the intended workflow (long-term storage for the classics, weekend detail and maintenance access, and occasional deeper work on the F-150). That pointed cleanly at one 4-post plus one 2-post.
The 4-post would carry a classic on top and hold a daily driver underneath, doubling storage. The 2-post would be the working lift for oil changes, brake jobs, and any real mechanical service across all vehicles. Total capacity requirements landed at 9,000 pounds for the 4-post (accommodating the heaviest classic plus any modern car underneath) and 10,000 pounds for the 2-post (accommodating the F-150 with plenty of margin). This was a straightforward car lift automotive decision once the vehicles and workflow were laid out, and it set the shape of every subsequent decision.
Month two: pouring the slab
Month two was slab work. The new outbuilding footprint was already excavated when we came in, and the collector’s general contractor had planned a standard four-inch slab with wire mesh. We recommended a bump to six inches with number-four rebar on 12-inch centers under the lift bay area, transitioning back to four inches with mesh in the storage and workshop areas. The reason: six inches with rebar gives him room to grow into a larger lift later without repouring, and it gives absolute confidence for the anchor loads under the 10,000 pound 2-post.
The pour happened on a Wednesday in October, which is late in the season for southwest Iowa but manageable. The concrete was 3,500 PSI mix, exceeding the 3,000 PSI spec for every car lift automotive we planned to install. Cure time was 28 days before anchor work could start, which lined up perfectly with the lift delivery schedule we were building. The general contractor and our install team coordinated directly on the placement and elevation of the pour, which is a step that surprises a lot of first-time buyers. The slab has to be flat within a defined tolerance for the columns to plumb correctly.
Month three: ordering the lift and prepping the shop
Month three was procurement. We finalized the equipment list (one 9,000 pound 4-post storage lift with an optional caster kit for mobility, plus one 10,000 pound commercial 2-post with three-stage arms and single-phase power), placed the manufacturer order, and set an ETA for delivery about six weeks out. Meanwhile the collector was finishing shop electrical, running 220 single-phase circuits to two dedicated locations (one for each lift), and installing shop lighting. Every car lift automotive install has a set of prerequisite trades that need to be done before the lift arrives, and electrical is the biggest one.
The other prep item was accessories. We spec’d the 4-post with a rolling jack (a bridge jack that spans the runways) so the collector could pull wheels off vehicles stored on the 4-post without having to move them to the 2-post. We spec’d the 2-post with truck adapters for the F-150 and pad extenders for the classics, which sit low to the ground on old suspension. All accessories were ordered with the lifts so they arrived together and shipping was consolidated. Total ship count was two lifts plus one accessory crate, on one truck.
Month four: delivery day
Delivery day came six weeks after ordering, which was a Tuesday in early December. The freight carrier called the collector the day before to schedule the appointment window and confirm the driveway was accessible for a full-size 53-foot trailer with a liftgate. The truck arrived on time, the driver dropped four column crates, one hardware crate, one power-unit crate, and two runway crates onto the driveway with the liftgate. Everything was on pallets and wrapped. Total elapsed time from truck arrival to truck departure was about 40 minutes.
Moving the crates from driveway to shop interior was the collector’s job (the freight terms are curbside), and he handled it with a rented all-terrain forklift for two hours. In southwest Iowa in December, ground conditions matter and he was ready for it. Any car lift automotive delivery to a new building should assume liftgate curbside and plan the last-30-feet accordingly. Some buyers use a skid steer, some use appliance dollies plus helpers, some rent a forklift for a half day. Whatever method you pick, have it lined up before the truck shows up.
Month five: install and first cycle
Our install team came out to southwest Iowa the week after Christmas for the two-lift install. Both lifts went up in the same two-day window: 4-post on day one, 2-post on day two, with anchor drilling, plumbing, electrical hookup, and initial fluid fill on both. Day two ended with the first full-cycle test on each lift: run it up to full extension, hold, run it back down, and check for any leaks, unusual noises, or alignment issues. Both passed clean. The 2-post columns plumbed within specification the first try, which is a credit to the flat pour.
The first vehicle on the new car lift automotive setup was the F-150, deliberately, so we could confirm the 2-post handled the heaviest vehicle in the collection at first cycle. The truck went up cleanly, the arms swung to the correct pad points without extension, and the lift held the truck at full rise for the safety hold-time inspection. After that, we cycled all four classics through onto both lifts, verifying pad placement and arm reach for each. The collector took photos of the pad positions for future reference. This is a step every collector should do because pad points on old cars are not always obvious.
Months six through 12: first year of collector-car maintenance
The rest of the first year was normal shop use. Oil changes on the F-150 every three months. A brake job on one of the classics in the spring when the collector noticed a pull under braking. A tire rotation session in May before the driving season. A transmission fluid service on the F-150 in the summer. A full underside inspection and undercarriage detail on each classic before it went back to storage in the fall. Every one of these jobs was easier on the new lifts than they would have been on jack stands or a shop appointment.
The car lift automotive setup earned its cost in year one on convenience alone, before counting the time saved on shop-trip logistics. The collector estimated he was on the lifts about 60 hours over the first year, more than average for a hobbyist because everything was new and he was doing the deep maintenance he had put off. That is not unusual for a first-year owner. Year two through 10 will average lower as the fleet catches up on service. Every year after that will be even lower as consumables settle into their normal cadence.
Lessons learned in year one
Three lessons stood out from year one that we now share with every new collector build. First: sequence the pour, electrical, and lift order to arrive in that order. Do not order the lift until the slab is cured and the electrical is roughed in. It sits on your driveway getting rained on if you order it too early. Second: buy the accessories with the lift, not after. Retrofitting truck adapters, pad extenders, and rolling jacks costs more in freight and time than including them in the original order. Third: take photos of every pad position on every vehicle the first time you lift it. Old classics do not have owner’s manual lift point diagrams and finding the right pad location on a car built in 1969 is a memory task.
The biggest single takeaway: a well-planned car lift automotive install is not stressful, it is boring. Boring is what you want. When a first-year collector build goes right, there is no drama on delivery day, no scrambling on install day, and no surprises in the first six months. If you are planning a similar project in southwest Iowa or anywhere in the state, call us at 800-674-9302 well before you dig the foundation. We can help you sequence the build so year one is boring in the best possible way.
Our Clients Include: