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What is the best floor jack for the money?
When you are looking for the best floor jack for the money there are a lot of different floor jacks to choose from. This guide is designed to help you get a better understanding of what you should be looking for when purchasing a floor jack and will give you some suggestions for floor jacks for different scenarios. Depending on if you are planning on lifting a small car or an SUV/truck will be the main consideration to make. So then what is the best floor jack for the money?
My Floor Jack Recommendations
Torin Big Red Hydraulic 3-Ton Trolley Floor Jack
If you need a 3-ton floor jack but still, want to not break the bank I would consider going with this Torin 3-ton floor jack.
This Torin 3-ton floor jack is in the Goldilocks zone of price and performance considering it has a 3-ton capacity and a height range from 6 inches to 17 inches.
If you have a small car or a lowered vehicle you may want to look elsewhere as this jack may not be able to fit underneath your vehicle but a quick measurement should be able to tell you if that is the case or not. This Torin floor jack would be ideal for trucks and SUVs and should be able to work for most raised vehicles.
Pro-Lift F-767 Grey Low Profile Floor Jack – 2 Ton Capacity
There were some other cheaper models but this one had a bunch of good reviews and was affordable so I ended up deciding on this one. I bought mine December of 2017 and it has held up well over the year.
It is a 2-ton jack so keep that in mind if you have a larger vehicle such as an SUV or a truck you would probably want to go with a higher 3-ton capacity floor jack. It also has a height range from 3 ½ inches to 14 inches so that will not be high enough to lift some SUVs off the ground.
Another consideration I took when deciding on this floor jack was because it was profile and I wanted to have a low profile jack just in case I got a really low slung car in the future. My current car is an Acura TSX and doesn’t really have any clearance issues but I do have to say I like the low profile design now that I have tried it.
Pro-LifT G-737 Grey Speedy Lift Garage Jack – 3-1/2 Ton Capacity
For starters, it has a really high height range going anywhere from 5 ½ inches to 22 inches. It has a magnetic trey built into the jack to give you a place to store your bolts or lug nuts while you are working on your vehicle.
It has a rubber saddle pad that extends off the top of the saddle a bit to provide extra protection. This floor jack also comes with a foam handle that can be broken down while storing the floor jack.
Powerzone 380044 3 Ton Aluminum and Steel Garage Jack
If you are wanting to go with an aluminum floor jack but don’t want to pay an outrageous amount then this is the floor jack you would want to go with.
This Powerzone floor jack uses a combination of aluminum and steel in the construction, it has an aluminum body and a steel lifting arm.
This would be beneficial as the steel would increase the strength of the lifting arm, but the aluminum body would make the floor jack lighter than if it was full steel construction.
This Powerzone floor jack as a 3-ton capacity and has a lift range from 4 inches to 18 inches. The Powerzone floor jack also comes with a rubber padded saddle to help protect your vehicle from scratches and help prevent accidentally damaging the underside of your vehicle, I really wish that the one I have had this feature.
Neiko Pro 20272B Premium Low Profile Aluminum Floor Jack 3 Ton Capacity
It is built from industrial grade aluminum so it will be lightweight. It has a 3-ton capacity but only weighs 57 pounds. The dual-action plunger can provide a height range from about 3 3/4 inches to 19 inches so it should work for most vehicles including SUVs.
This Neiko Pro aluminum floor jack also features a rubberized saddle pad that is designed to help protect your vehicle from the damage a floor jack can cause.
What Floor Jack Do You Own?
Pro-Lift F-767 Grey Low Profile Floor Jack – 2 Ton Capacity
If you have a larger vehicle like an SUV or a truck you may want to look at going with another jack however as the lifting range on this is only 14 inches which won’t get a lot of SUVs off the ground.
What to look for when purchasing a floor jack
Weight Capacity
When looking at buying the best floor jack for the money you want to take into consideration what types of vehicles you will be lifting. Depending on what types of vehicles you are planning on lifting with your floor jack would determine what weight capacity floor jack you should go with. 1-ton is equal to 2,000 pounds so a 2-ton floor jack would be able to lift 4,000 pounds safely.
Most small passenger cars are going to weigh anywhere from 3,000 – 4,000 pounds. You would probably be fine with a 2-ton floor jack if you are just going to be using it for small cars or other small vehicles.
Most trucks and SUVs are going to be in the 4,000 – 5,000-pound range so you would probably want to go with at least a 3-ton jack if you own an SUV or truck.
If you do not know how much your vehicle weighs it would be a good idea to do a quick google search for your year, make, and model vehicle to find out what the curb weight of your vehicle is. You could then make a determination as to what capacity of a floor jack to go with.
My car is an Acura TSX and its curb weight is right around 3,400-3,500 pounds so I just went with a 2-ton floor jack when I purchased mine.
Steel Floor Jacks
Steel floor jacks are going to be the cheaper option when compared to aluminum floor jacks so if you are looking to get the most bang for your buck you would probably want to go with a steel floor jack. Steel floor jacks will also be heavier than aluminum floor jacks but this is because steel is heavier than aluminum.
Aluminum Floor Jacks
With aluminum floor jacks they will weigh quite a bit less than a steel floor jack but you are going to pay a premium compared to a steel floor jack. Aluminum floor jacks will be decently lighter than a comparable steel floor jack so if the weight of your floor jack is an issue then you may want to go with an aluminum floor jack.
Height Ranges
One thing you would want to take into consideration in choosing the best floor jack for the money is the minimum and maximum height ranges that it would allow. If you have a sports car that is very low to the ground then you would want to make sure that the floor jack would be able to slip underneath the vehicle to allow it to jack it up in the air.
If you have a large lifted truck the maximum height of the floor jack should be considered as you would want to make sure that it is high enough to get your truck off the ground.
Do You Need An Expensive Floor Jack?
I personally would stick with a cheaper floor jack if you are not planning on using your floor jack all the time. If you were a mechanic that was going to be consistently using your floor jack on customers’ cars and needed it to last a while before replacing it you could go with a pro version of a floor jack. For the average DIY person you should be fine with going with a cheaper floor jack.
The other benefit of going with a cheaper floor jack is that if something goes wrong with it you aren’t out that much money. You could just go buy another cheap one without having to worry about repairing your current one.
If you buy a floor jack for $200 and it breaks after a couple of years you are going to be more likely to want to repair the floor jack instead of just replacing it which can also cost more money.
I’ve had an instance where my floor jack quit working after only a few times of use. It must have been defective because it didn’t work that well from the day that I got it. The first jack that I purchased from a local Autozone lasted a long time before eventually wearing out.
It would still jack up my car but it would slowly let the vehicle lower back down over time. If you used jack stands it wasn’t that big of a problem so I still used it in that state for a while before deciding to eventually replace the first one I had purchased with a brand new one that I currently own.
How to Use a Floor Jack
If you have never used a floor jack before you shouldn’t be intimidated by using one, it’s not all that difficult. If this is the first time you have jacked up the vehicle that you will be working on it may be a good idea to go online to figure out where the jack points are for your vehicle.
This will make sure that you are jacking the vehicle up from the specific areas that are designed for this function.
If you jack up your vehicle from a point of your vehicle that is not designed to be used as a jack point then you run the risk of potentially doing damage to the underside of your vehicle.
Once you have figured out where the proper jack points are on your vehicle you would then want to wheel your floor jack under your vehicle and position the lifting arm underneath your jack point. It may be helpful at this point to have some sort of lighting available to allow you to line up the jack with your jack point.
From there you can go ahead and start jacking up your vehicle in the air, once you have lifted the vehicle sufficiently off of the ground you can then use jack stands to support your vehicle. You don’t want to leave the vehicle in the air supported by a floor jack as it is stressful on the jack and it can eventually lead to the jack failing and having your vehicle crush you.
If you currently do not own jack stands then you would want to look at investing in at least a pair of them as well. The same sort of guidelines apply with jack stands as floor jacks they will be rated at certain capacities and be sold in pairs.
2-ton pair of jack stands would be able to support 4,000 pounds in total, a 3-ton pair of jack stands would be able to support 6,000 pounds in totals. If you are planning on having your vehicle supported in all four corners then you would want to look at getting two pairs of jack stands so that you could have one jack stand on each corner of the vehicle.
If you are interested in reading more about jack stands and which ones would be suitable for your vehicle you can read my other article about the best jack stands for the money.
Rubberized pad
Some floor jacks on this list will come with a rubberized pad already inserted into the end of the floor jack arm. These can help vehicles from slipping off of the floor jack and can also help prevent you from accidentally scratching your vehicle. If you are looking at a higher-end floor jack I would consider getting one with a rubberized pad.
Floor Jack Accessories
Rubber Jack Pad
If your vehicle jack points are on the frame rails of your vehicle like on mine you may want to look at purchasing a rubber jack pad for your floor jack if yours did not come with one. You can then set your rubber jack pad into the lifting arm of your floor jack so that you can then lift your vehicle with the rubber pad instead of the metal floor jack arm.
This will greatly reduce the chances of you doing damage to the underside of your vehicle from jacking it up. If you are interested in purchasing a rubber jack pad to help protect the underside of your vehicle I’ve included a link to purchase one off of Amazon here: DEDC Jack Pad Slotted Rubber Jack Pad
In Conclusion
When you are looking for the best floor jack for the money there are a lot of different options to choose from. The main consideration when choosing the best floor jack for the money is how much weight capacity the floor jack has. You want to decide between a steel or aluminum floor jack.
If you have a car that is low to the ground or a truck that is raised you would also want to consider the height ranges of the floor jack to make sure that you don’t buy one that can’t lift up your vehicle. Hopefully, this guide was able to give you a better understanding of what you should be looking for when purchasing the best floor jack for the money.
If you wanted to watch a video explaining how to properly use jack stands I’ve linked one below.