If you run a heavy-duty truck shop doing frame and body restoration work in the Quad Cities, you already know a two-post lift built for oil changes won’t cut it once you’re pulling cabs, dropping beds, and hanging on a vehicle for days at a time. That’s where mohawk automotive lifts tend to come up in conversation, because Mohawk builds heavy-capacity two-post and four-post equipment that can handle the abuse of metal work without flexing or fighting you. We’re Auto Lift Services out of Ames, Iowa, and we install, service, and quote this equipment across the Midwest, including shops doing exactly this kind of restoration and fabrication work near the river.
Tell us your vehicle weight, bay dimensions, and timeline and we’ll put together a real quote with freight and install included.
What’s actually in the price of mohawk automotive lifts
When a truck shop calls us about restoration lifts, the first question is almost always “what’s this going to run me,” and the honest answer is that the sticker price on mohawk automotive lifts is only part of the number. There’s the lift itself, freight to get a few thousand pounds of steel to eastern Iowa or the Quad Cities, and then installation labor, which varies depending on whether you’re pouring new concrete, working with an existing pit, or bolting to a slab that’s already rated for the load. We’ve seen proforma invoices from Mohawk where the equipment line item is one number and the shipping adds a meaningful chunk on top, so when we quote a job we build all of that in up front instead of surprising a shop owner later.
For restoration and metal work specifically, you’re usually looking at a higher-capacity two-post, sometimes a four-post depending on how you want to work under the vehicle, and the pricing tiers move quickly once you get into 9,000 to 18,000 pound and up territory. We tell every shop the same thing: give us the vehicle weights you’re actually lifting, not just what’s average, because undersizing a lift to save money up front is the most expensive mistake we see in this business. Get the number right the first time and the rest of the cost breakdown makes a lot more sense.
Deposit, balance, and how the payment schedule works
Mohawk runs on a fairly standard structure that we’ve dealt with directly for years: a deposit due at order placement, typically in the neighborhood of 25 percent, and then the remaining balance due before the lift actually ships. We’ve had proforma invoices where the deposit was under four thousand dollars against a total order well into five figures, and we’ve also seen full balances due before shipping run over fifteen thousand or over thirty thousand depending on the size and number of lifts ordered. None of that ships until the balance clears, so if you’re planning an install date, you need to plan your payment timing around that just as carefully as you plan around concrete curing or forklift availability.
What this means practically for a Quad Cities shop: if you want equipment on the ground by a certain month, work backward. Freight alone can take a week or more once it leaves the factory, and Mohawk won’t release the order to ship until it’s paid in full. We manage this coordination on jobs we install so you’re not the one chasing an accounts receivable department while trying to run a shop. We also flag lead times early so a payment delay on your end doesn’t quietly turn into a missed install window on ours.
Why restoration and metal shops lean toward Mohawk’s higher-capacity models
Restoration work is hard on lifts in a way that oil-change traffic isn’t. A truck sitting for a week with a cab off, or a frame getting cut and welded while the body hangs on the arms, puts sustained, uneven load on the columns and cables in a way that a lift rated for daily quick-service turnover was never designed for. Mohawk’s heavier two-post and four-post lines are built with that kind of dwell time and off-center loading in mind, which is exactly why shops doing this work keep asking about them by name instead of settling for whatever’s cheapest.
We’ve also fielded plenty of service calls on existing Mohawk lifts where a restraint pin, a release cable, or a hydraulic ram starts acting up after years of exactly this kind of use — getting stuck partway down, needing the cable held just right to release. That’s not a knock on the brand; it’s just wear from real work, and it’s fixable with the right parts. If you’re buying new for a metal shop, ask us about the arm configurations and pad options too, since heavy trucks and stripped-down project vehicles don’t always sit on factory pads the same way a stock car does.
Concrete, pit depth, and site prep before install day
Before we ever schedule an install, we ask the same questions every time: how thick and how old is your concrete, is there a pit already in place or are we anchoring to a slab, and do you have a forklift on site to help unload freight. For a heavier restoration-grade lift, concrete requirements are stricter than for a light-duty consumer lift, and we’ve had to walk shops through pouring a new pad before installation could even be scheduled. Skipping this step is how you end up with a lift that’s technically installed but not rated to hold what you actually need it to hold.
Bay layout matters too. Metal work often means longer dwell times per vehicle and more clearance needed for overhead tools, welding leads, or a second lift working alongside it. We walk through your bay dimensions before quoting so the lift you’re financing actually fits the way you work, not just the way a floor plan looks on paper. This is also the point where we talk about anchor bolt requirements, columns needing clearance from walls or other equipment, and whether power needs to be run to a spot in the bay that doesn’t currently have it.
What we saw quoting this kind of job for a university and heavy fleet accounts
We’ve done installation work tied to institutional and fleet accounts where the process runs through a formal service group setup before a job can even be scheduled — paperwork, insurance verification, and lead time requirements that are separate from the equipment cost itself. A Quad Cities restoration shop isn’t usually navigating that level of red tape, but the underlying lesson carries over: build in lead time for paperwork, financing approval, and freight, not just for the physical install. We’ve had jobs where the customer wanted work starting within weeks, and the bottleneck wasn’t the lift — it was getting the service group packet or financing approved in time.
For an independent shop, that usually means talking to your lender or working out a payment plan with us early, before you’re locked into a hard install date. We’d rather help you sequence the deposit, balance, and install date correctly from the start than have you scrambling to make a shipping deadline because a payment cleared late.
Freight, forklifts, and getting heavy equipment into your bay
Mohawk equipment ships via freight carrier, and for a heavier restoration-capacity lift that means a truck showing up with a few thousand pounds of steel on a pallet that needs to come off safely. We ask every customer up front whether they have a forklift on site or need us to arrange offloading, because this is one of those details that seems minor until a truck is sitting in your parking lot with no way to get the crate down. Tracking numbers and ship dates get communicated as soon as the order leaves the warehouse, and we stay on top of that so you’re not guessing when equipment will actually show up.
Once it’s on site, install timelines for a restoration-grade two-post or four-post typically run a day or two depending on site conditions, anchor work, and whether hydraulic lines need routing through an existing pit versus surface-mounted. We schedule installers around your shop’s downtime tolerance, because we know a metal shop can’t always just shut a bay down without notice.
Parts, service, and keeping mohawk automotive lifts running for years
Buying the lift is the beginning, not the end. We stock and source parts for mohawk automotive lifts already in the field — restraint pins, release cables, hydraulic components — because these lifts get run hard in restoration and heavy truck shops and eventually something needs attention. If you’re financing a new lift, it’s worth factoring basic service intervals and eventual part replacement into your long-term cost picture rather than treating the purchase price as the whole story.
We service what we sell and plenty of equipment we didn’t sell too, so whether you’re weighing a new purchase or trying to keep an older unit running through one more restoration project, call us before you assume a lift is done for. Half the service calls we get turn out to be a straightforward part swap, not a full replacement.
Our Clients Include: