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[TheBoy]

If you have a crap tarmac drive, laid by a arrogant idiot - as mine was - nought you can do to shine up that turd, short of replacing drive.

I have to use a small metal sheet under my jack

I use the Clarke Jack as linked to by Jimbob.  Its OK, does the job, but I've seen better...

[Elite Pete]

Ive got a cheap 2 tonne jack and I tend to jack the car in stages, one side enough to get a stand under, then the other side and so on, increasing the height of the stand until I can get my belly under the car and I never work on a raised car without stands under it.

[feeutfo]

Yep, crap all round really, crap drive and sh@ jack. Will post the up the halfords one i saw to compare. From memory it had quite wide wheels so less likely to dig into ground/wood but was only 2.5 but £40 so cheaper. How much does the mig weigh? Your never going to get the whole weight on one jack so surely 2.5 is enough? Depends what else you work on as well i suppose, cover all eventualitys and all that. Where do you get the rubber pads for the 4 prong 'cup' by the way? They would be more kind to the under side of the car. Cheers.

[Darth Loo-knee]

they go up in a radious so they pull the car over when the stupidly small wheels dig into your drive, which they have done several times making a right mess. The one i have has to short a reach making axle stands a pain/too tall. I know, i need a bigger jack, seen £40 one in halfords 2.5ton and reaches higher than the stands on the shelf next to them.  
But why cant somebody build a locking bottle jack into an axle stand thats low enough to get under a car with a flat plate on the bottom so it saves the drive?
Ps are ramps any good. Not for wheel off work obviously but do they clear the body of the car? Do they slide away when you drive up to them unless they also dig into the drive?

The Range Rover has a brilliant bottle jack  

[Darth Loo-knee]

they go up in a radious so they pull the car over when the stupidly small wheels dig into your drive, which they have done several times making a right mess. The one i have has to short a reach making axle stands a pain/too tall. I know, i need a bigger jack, seen £40 one in halfords 2.5ton and reaches higher than the stands on the shelf next to them.  
But why cant somebody build a locking bottle jack into an axle stand thats low enough to get under a car with a flat plate on the bottom so it saves the drive?
Ps are ramps any good. Not for wheel off work obviously but do they clear the body of the car? Do they slide away when you drive up to them unless they also dig into the drive?

Good way of not damaging your drive would to be to put some ply wood under your jack

[Albert1]

Yep, crap all round really, crap drive and sh@ jack. Will post the up the halfords one i saw to compare. From memory it had quite wide wheels so less likely to dig into ground/wood but was only 2.5 but £40 so cheaper. How much does the mig weigh? Your never going to get the whole weight on one jack so surely 2.5 is enough? Depends what else you work on as well i suppose, cover all eventualitys and all that. Where do you get the rubber pads for the 4 prong 'cup' by the way? They would be more kind to the under side of the car. Cheers.

Omegas weigh 1500-1800 kg, and as you say the jack never has to lift the whole car, so even a 2 tonne jack should be fine, but in real life they still struggle.

If I work under a car only supported by a struggling, creaking, wobbling jack, I always wear extra thick jumpers to protect me should the car fall on me.    

[Jimbob]

Way I think of it is what will do a lot will do a little.

We all know a 2.0 Omega is enough.....

Still most of us prefer 2.5's and above

I like a heavier duty tool most of the time  

Who remembers the collapsing 2 ton axle stand issue?

[JezInBrum]

I bought a JCB jack a few years ago due to the digging into my tarmac drive problem. 2.5 ton lifts front end of car via x-memer although not the safest method.
It has nice fat wheels althouh does occasionally stick. Again I always use axle stands after.
Bottle jacks from stories I heard many moons ago are the most unreliable & most likely to fail. Again should only be used to lift, then use stands.
I have managed to use ramps for the front & back with no real fuss. Mostly dependant on the type of ramp, some are higher thann others. Can reverse straight on. With the front end I have to lift the front a smidge to slide them under the bumper. Has never caused any damage.

[Kevin Wood]

I have the tarty 1.25 tonne ali Machine Mart jack http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/ctj1250a-11-4-tonne-aluminium-trolley-jack and it still lifts a corner of the Omega quite happily. Struggles a little bit but mainly due to lack of mechanical advantage as it seems "higher geared" than some of the heavier duty ones.

I bought it primarily to fit under the Westfield as it goes down seriously low. It also spreads the weight at the front across a big roller rather than 2 narrow wheels. Still doesn't roll that smoothly (on a smooth concrete floor) when there's load on it though. You can help the issue by making sure the wheels / rollers are well lubricated. They often aren't well oiled during manufacture and only get worse after languishing in a garage for ages.

I think you're always going to struggle on tarmac unless you spread the load somehow. A bog standard old scissor jack might even be a better bet on this type of surface. It goes down low enough, and lifts straight up, with the added bonus that its' smaller footprint on the ground means it leaves more room to get an axle stand in.

I remember once I had to change a wheel on a glider trailer on a fairly soft airfield. By the time I'd finished I had to dig my trolley jack out. It was completely embedded in the ground.

Kevin

[SteveMJ]

they go up in a radious so they pull the car over when the stupidly small wheels dig into your drive, which they have done several times making a right mess. The one i have has to short a reach making axle stands a pain/too tall. I know, i need a bigger jack, seen £40 one in halfords 2.5ton and reaches higher than the stands on the shelf next to them.  
But why cant somebody build a locking bottle jack into an axle stand thats low enough to get under a car with a flat plate on the bottom so it saves the drive?
Ps are ramps any good. Not for wheel off work obviously but do they clear the body of the car? Do they slide away when you drive up to them unless they also dig into the drive?

You'll find that the front skirt panels on most modern saloons are to near to the ground to allow the use of ramps. A way around the problem of the ramps sliding is to wrap a hessian sack or strong rag around the bottom rung of the ramp then drive over the sack the weight of the wheels on the sack holds the ramps in place and prevents them from sliding forwards

I bought some excellent extensions for my ramps that allow the car to rise gently at first without the front of the valence pushing the ramps away.  This way the ramps do not slide away and it easy to raise a portion of the car up by ~300mm.

Steve

[dbug]

Got a set of really sturdy home made ramps (made them in the 70s)- omega is first car i have had where bodywork too low to use these  ramps.  Easy solution - place two 2" high wooden plank ends in front of ramps and drive straight up, no clearance problems.  

These ramps are wider than most but my elite tyres are wider!  :-?