Do you sleep easy knowing your jack is made in China?

jos51700 said

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Welp. China Jack strikes again. This one popped like a fire cracker and dumped my '93 Dakota. This was a couple days ago and I left it in the rain overnight so now it has rust spots on it.
Oreilly's told me to pound sand with no receipt. F'en cash.....

Notice that's a 2 1/4 ton Jack. Under a Dakota front end (5.2, granted) on level asphalt. I was headed to grab my stands when it let go.

They DO make USA made jacks, and actually not too far from me, in St Joseph, Mo.
But they're $1k.

I may weld a flat plate on this one so I can use it, but I'm still not happy and obviously I'll never trust it.

Click to expand...

Still haven't learned anything about picking a jack I see. Super narrow profile, unreinforced stamped steel. Doesn't matter if it's rated for 2.25 tons (who uses 1/4 tons anyway?), it's way too easy to side load it or have it flex. It's not China's fault that it's just a terrible design. I mean, AC Delco was an American company too, blame those knuckleheads for outsourcing their manufacturing.

You should be using a jack with a base twice as wide as that. The lift cradle being like 3" in diameter should be another dead giveaway that it's a cheap jack that shouldn't be trusted. You want surface area to spread the loads, both at the lift cradle and at the wheels. Those cute little trolley jacks are intended to be used at the rocker seam to lift a car just high enough to change a flat tire, nothing else. They're an improvement over a scissor jack, but they're not intended for general automotive work IMO, they're for changing a flat on one corner only with no one underneath and as low of a lift as possible.

Spend a $100, buy a jack that weighs more than 50 lbs. Something rated for 3 tons, has a lifting cradle at least 6" wide, rear wheels that are a foot apart or more.