Garage Lift's, educate me please! Options

[Ferg]

Fergwife and I are house shopping right now, and I got the OK for a garage lift for the new place. I'm just starting to do my research and think I want a 2 post lift for ease of working on the car (wheels suspended) But... I'm finding that 4inch base of concrete is a must, and doubt that newer homes around here have that. So I may have to go the 4 post route, My plans and hopes are 3 cars in 2 car garage, and minor 914 work made easier.

Those with lifts (Gint, Jim, ect) have any insight for me on types of lifts, good experiences with certain companys ect.

TIA (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

Ferg.

[lapuwali]

There are other choices besides the two-post and four-post. The low-lift, like Kwik Lift, which is a lower, cheaper, no-220-required, you can't park anything under it four-post. There's also what I'll call the scissors lift (don't have any ready examples, though I saw at least one on this very board), which is nearly ideal for the 914, but not so ideal for anything else. These lift the car from the four corners of the 914 tub (the donuts), leaving the wheels and the driveline dangling. If you have to work on the exhaust on a front engined car, this model would suck.

The other factor with a four-post IF you intend to do the up/down parking thing is ceiling height in the prospective garage. My garage is 115" from the floor to the joists, which is not quite enough for me to park a Mini and a 914 over/under on a four poster (about 1" short). If you're only ever going to park really low cars on it, no problem. The Mini is pretty short, though.

On the concrete depth requirement for the two-poster; since the thing is going to be bolted to the floor, you could certainly have a contractor come out to dig and repour thicker sections under where the lift will be bolted. You don't have to do the whole floor, just where the posts sit.