Review: Kwiklift

Cold winter floors.  The lingering unease of jack stands.  At a certain point in the car hobby, most DIY-ers come to want or need a lift.  If you are in a forever home, have the means and the space, know your slab is for sure thick enough, and are ok with shop upgrades (25A circuit with a high-mag breaker, usually and sometimes shop air), a two- or four-post lift is a few thousand dollars of heaven. 

There are solutions for most situations, each with its own compromises.  For us, a Kwiklift was the best solution for the next few years.  Here's how it went:

We caught a promotion and got free shipping, a $129 value for our location.  We opted for the standard lift, which comes powdercoated and includes one centerlift bridge.  The lift is typically shipped to a nearby freight terminal.   Sounds inconvenient but it is configured to fit between the wheel wells of a standard pickup truck bed.  The good folks that the terminal will load it into your vehicle.  Once home, cut open the boxes and remove the pieces one at a time,  no special equipment needed. 

We checked the dimensions and found our lift would fit perfectly into a full size cargo van.  Hello, U-Haul.

Start by laying out the ramps upside down, approximately where you want the lift to end up. Two modestly strong people can manage pretty easily. 

Bolt the two sections of track together on each side, then flip them over.

Place the ramps on the stands, insert the hinge bars and safety pins.  Grease the lift bar holes and slide the lift bar into position. 

With the supplied lever, rotate the lift bar to the up position, then raise the back of the ramps with a floor jack.

Pull the spring-loaded safety locks out to drop the back legs, which lock into position. 

The ramps didn't slide around when we drove a car on, but we are experimenting with rubber mats anyway.

Adjust the ramps to your vehicle's width and the lift is ready to use. 

We plan to add a stripe of anti-skid tape up the center of the ramps.  Tire height in the up position is 20" above the floor.  You can use the center bridge, bottle jacks or scissors jacks for wheels-off service and you can park on or over the ramps for long-term storage.   Time to assemble?  About an hour.  We had our tools put away, the garage door down and the rental van swept and returned in 2 hours. 

For reals, if a "big" lift works for you, they're great.  We still want one in the future.  If that isn't in the cards though, Kwiklift gets you 70 or 80% there super easily.     

That’s pretty cool!

Also,  nice ZR1!  I’ve always wanted one,  but never pulled the trigger.

That is neat.

In reply to Cotton :

Thanks!  They’re neat cars. Very excited to have the Kwiklift, wish I could have bought it years ago. 

AnthonyGS said:

I’m doing a lift in my new house for sure.  Anyone really wanting a good ZR-1 should consider mine.  I will sell by spring.  It’s a 91 blk/blk 67k and all the annoying c4 problems are fixed or will be before sale.  

 

Can you PM me with your asking price?  I’m in the process of thinning the heard right now,  but after I sell 4 or so more of my cars this fall I’ll be ready to pick up something else.

This looks like a great idea except when having to take the wheels off for suspension or brake work.

In reply to Swiss44 :

I went to their website and they have some sort of a cross bar thingy to put the jack stands on.  Ya know since I went to six ton jackstands the fear factor has gone away but this looks like a great deal more convenience at a price.  

That's one hard part done.  Now to get yourself a proper work bench and some serious shelving.  I have remote garage envy at this point. 

nutherjrfan said:

In reply to Swiss44 :

I went to their website and they have some sort of a cross bar thingy to put the jack stands on.  Ya know since I went to six ton jackstands the fear factor has gone away but this looks like a great deal more convenience at a price.  

I just checked the site. Looks like this will be the new garage's lift. :)

That is sweet. Can you do break jobs or suspension work with those? Are there accessories for not sitting on the wheels.

Affirmative, there is a cross bar that bridges the ramps.  It's seen best in pics 1, 2 & 6 above.  Your jacks go on the bridge, which seems more than strong enough for the job.  Alternatively, you can place bottle or scissors jacks directly on the ramps if you need them positioned closer to the perimeter of the vehicle than the center, or choose not to get the bridge.  A very slight downside to the bridge is it is designed to rest in the ramp valleys, meaning you have to spread the ramps to a fixed width.  It shouldn't be much of a problem unless your car has a really, really narrow or stadium-truck wide wheelbase.  So far, the lift seems like a keeper, even if a "real" lift happens down the road.