Originally Posted By: Rand
I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I feel the average person is much more safe on ramps than trying to use a jack and jack stands..
not to mention the total lack of good places to place jack stands on many cars.
I agree! Jack stands have their place like when you need the tires off the ground and I use them all the time. I also use two floor jacks to avoid tilting and rocking issues getting vehicles on the stands. They are a pain for quicky work like oil, lube and mufflers. I much rather be on ramps for that.
I have used a few styles and I will be happy to get long-winded and share my thoughts on them, especially if you have a truck or big tires.
Poly ramps - Okay if they are solid.
Stamped steel ramps - very common old school stuff.
Steel stands with removable ramp section - I like a lot but they are old and sized for cars.
These all share some bad points that make me uncomfortable.
They are narrower than I would like. Now that trucks and wide sports tires are so common, these ramp designs date back when narrow bias ply tires were the norm. Getting them lined up perfectly is frustrating.
The tire pad on top of all of them seem too short. By the time you feel like it's leveling off you're already at the stops with little to no warning. The tire is still partially on the slope.
The slope is too steep. I need to rev and play with the brakes (see next point).
They are too light or only have small contact points with the ground. The stamped ramps only sit on the 2 front corners and the back. With FWD only one tire may get a good grip and slide the ramp back. Or one side catches while jockeying the pedals and you have 1 wheel on the ramp and the other is half way up.
Poly ramps can crack, be affected by chemicals or weather and get pretty slippery.
All in all I'm not really happy with any of the normal store ramps. They are made to be light weight and/or stackable and take up as little storage space as possible. I'm looking at those RhinoRamps and they don't seem half bad. I'm sure I would prefer them over the old stamped steelers I have been using lately, but the tops still seem too short for me. I want more warning and rollback room until the tranmission parking pin engages. I can't even see my wheels from the window when going up and none of my trucks have working parking brakes due to age or design.
If you want to do driveway work on vehicles, have a saw, and can sacrifice a little more space - build your own wood ramps. Grab some 2x12's, Liquid Nails, screws, and go to town.
Wood is soft enough to get good surface grip and sure as heck aint gonna collapse. You don't even have to use all 2x12 for the layers. You could use 2x4 as spacers (across the width) on the 1st, 3rd and 5th layers with a 3 inch gap and still be about as strong and save some wood and weight. Make the stops and wheel guides with 2x4 and the roll-back hump with 1x2. Use something like padlock hasps to join the ramp sections so you can remove them for more creeper room. You can put some thick glue or mastic on the ramps and tops and sprinkle with crushed limestone, aquarium gravel, etc. for great traction.
Make them where YOU feel safe and they match YOUR needs. In fact, the ramps I drew for an example look just dandy and I am going to make them for myself when it gets warm again here.
Safe wrenching..