A Des Moines metro car collector called us early last year about buying his first car lift for his home garage, and the story of his first twelve months of ownership is worth telling because he did it the right way. He wanted to compare real model specs before ordering, he built a maintenance schedule from day one, and he called us honestly when things confused him instead of guessing. This is the first-year timeline of what he chose, how it performed, what he learned during his first transmission service, and what we would tell any collector setting up their first storage bay to save themselves a year of small mistakes.
Four-post lifts sized for home collectors doing storage and occasional service work, with real specs and Iowa install support.
The spec comparison he built before he ordered
Our collector spent about six weeks comparing three specific models before he called us: the Rotary SPO10 nine-thousand-pound four-post, the BendPak HD-9 nine-thousand-pound four-post, and the Atlas Apex-9 nine-thousand-pound four-post. He built a spreadsheet with 14 columns comparing overall length, overall width, runway width, rise height, column height, capacity, wheelbase range, lock positions, hydraulic pump specs, cable count, warranty terms, ALI certification status, install cost, and dealer proximity in Iowa. That level of homework is unusual, and it made our job easy because he was already asking the right questions.
The three lifts converged on physical dimensions, which is not a coincidence — the nine-thousand-pound home four-post class has settled into a standard geometry over the last decade. Where the three diverged was in the dealer network and parts pipeline in Iowa. Rotary and BendPak have strong Iowa dealer support. Atlas has thinner Iowa dealer coverage. For a collector who plans to own his car lift for 20 years, dealer support at year 12 matters more than a few percent in capacity or reach. That was the decisive factor in the end.
Weeks 1-4: car lift install day and first drive-on
He ordered a Rotary SPO10 with the wide-runway variant, caster kit, drip trays, and a jack platform. Delivery landed 12 days after order. Install was one afternoon with our two-person crew. His garage slab was six inches thick and inspected fine on our site survey. Anchors went in dry, columns stood plumb within 30 minutes of arriving, and the crossbeams and runways were on within two hours. Calibration and load test took another hour, and he drove his classic sports car onto the lift by dinnertime the same day.
His first drive-on was the moment most collectors either fall in love or panic. He panicked briefly because he did not know how to line the tires up on the runways without a tire guide. Our install tech showed him the two-second trick — spot the drip tray edge in the driver-side mirror as you creep forward, and align to it — and by his fifth drive-on he was doing it without thinking. Weeks 2 through 4 he lifted and stored three other vehicles, cycling the lift about 15 times total to get comfortable. Nothing broke, nothing squeaked, nothing surprised him. That is what a good install looks like.
Comparing SPO10 versus HD-9 car lift specs one more time
Once he owned the SPO10 he was curious whether the BendPak HD-9 would have felt different, so we walked him through the head-to-head one more time. The SPO10 has a rise height of about 66 inches at full extension. The HD-9 is within an inch. Runway width standard is 20 inches on both. Column height at full retraction is about 90 inches on the SPO10 and within an inch on the HD-9. Lifting time from floor to full rise is about 45 seconds on both units with a stock hydraulic pump.
Where the two diverge is in the accessory catalog and the cable specification. BendPak offers a slightly wider off-the-shelf accessory range. Rotary offers a slightly heavier cable specification on the SPO10 which shows up in resale and residual math. Neither difference is decisive for a home collector doing 30 to 50 lift cycles a year. Both are ALI certified. Both hold value at year five between 45 and 55 percent of new. He was glad he chose Rotary primarily because our Iowa parts warehouse is 20 minutes from his garage, but he acknowledged that with BendPak he would have been fine too. Honest math on both.
Weeks 5-16: first transmission service on the new lift
His first real service work on the lift was at month four when his classic needed a transmission fluid change and a leaking front seal. Transmission service on a four-post car lift is a slightly different workflow than on a two-post. On a two-post the whole underside of the car is open. On a four-post the runways sit under the wheels, which means you have to work around the crossbeams and the runways when you are dropping or lifting a transmission out of the vehicle.
He borrowed a rolling transmission jack from us for the job and figured out that the SPO10 crossbeam layout gave him just enough clearance to swing the jack under the trans crossmember without moving the vehicle. Total job took him five hours across two evenings. Second time he did the same service on his SUV a few months later, he had it down to three hours. The lesson he learned: four-post lifts are storage lifts first and service lifts second, but they can absolutely do transmission work if you plan the workflow. For a collector doing occasional trans services, that is a good enough fit that a dedicated two-post is not worth the second lift.
The 6-month car lift cable inspection he did himself
At month six he did his own cable inspection following the Rotary maintenance schedule we had left him. He climbed the columns on a ladder, unclipped the cable covers, and looked at each of the four equalization cables for broken strands, corrosion, and fraying near the sheaves. All four cables were clean. He also checked the sheave rotation for smoothness and lubricated the bearings with a small dab of high-temp grease as specified in the manual. Total inspection took about 45 minutes end to end.
He called us during the inspection to ask about one spot where the cable had a slightly polished appearance near a sheave, worried it was wear. We walked him through the visual difference between polish (normal, harmless) and flattening (worn, replace). He confirmed it was polish, and we told him to note the date and check the same spot in another six months. That is the kind of self-inspection cadence that makes a home car lift last 20 years instead of 8. Ownership is not just buying the lift, it is knowing how to look at it honestly every six months and catch issues before they become failures.
Month 12: what he would tell himself a year ago
At the one-year mark we asked him what he would tell himself a year ago if he could go back to before ordering. Three things came up. First, the caster kit was worth every dollar because he had already moved the lift twice for other garage projects and could not imagine doing it without wheels. Second, the wide-runway variant was worth the small upcharge because it made drive-on faster and stress-free for wider-tire vehicles. Third, he should have ordered the jack platform on day one instead of adding it at month three, because it turned into a daily-use accessory for wheel work.
His only regret was minor: he had not budgeted for a decent creeper and a better light setup under the lift when he first sized the garage. Those are afterthoughts you make about your first bay setup, not about the lift itself. The car lift chose right, the accessories chose right, and the ceiling and slab were sized right from the start. For a first-time collector, that is a clean scorecard. He plans to add a two-post in the second bay in year three, which is exactly the sequence we suggest for collectors who want both storage and full service capability in the same shop.
His verdict a year in
His verdict was that the SPO10 has done exactly what he needed and nothing has surprised him. He has stored four different vehicles across the winter, done two transmission services, one brake job, and countless oil changes. The lift has cycled about 60 times in twelve months, which is on the low end of home use, and he expects a 25-plus year service life at that duty cycle. His Rotary parts pipeline is 20 minutes away and his install crew — us — is a phone call away for questions.
If you are a Des Moines metro collector or a home garage builder anywhere in Iowa staring at your first car lift purchase, the lesson from his year is straightforward. Do your spec homework before you order. Ask about dealer proximity and parts pipeline as seriously as you ask about capacity and rise. Related reading: our Cedar Rapids family garage deep-dive and our cable-care comparison for diff-service shops. Call 800-674-9302 and we will walk you through the same comparison exercise.
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