jacks

I was given the Aldi version a couple of years ago. I use it for maintenance at home, don't carry it on the road. It does what it's supposed to do with ease. I've had no problems with it at all.

I purchased one of these about 18 months ago. Took it on every trip but only used it occasionally. Used it once or twice on my Prado, fully loaded, with no problems. About 3 months ago my son took it with him on a big trip half way around the country. He used it many times for flat tyres on this Patrol and camper trailer. On the last occasion, while changing a flat front tyre on his Nissan GQ, the jack virtually exploded. The motor/gearbox casting went "bang" leaving it in bits.

Thankfully he's a smart boy and always had a jack stand or spare wheel under the truck for safety.
I don't think I'll replace it, as I now have a GU Patrol and a new 20ton bottle jack for the job. I certainly recommend that if get one ( or already have one ) be very careful with it, use a jack stand, and have another lifting device as a 'back up".
Capt.

I converted a Toyota screw jack that I wind up with a battery drill.
I welded a 1/2" socket to the spindle with the square out. A universal drive fits into that.
My van is a Golf with independent suspension so the lift point (at the end of the wishbone) is a fair way under so not easy to get to.
I have a 600mm long rod with another socket welded to that to fit into the universal drive.
200mm square plate welded on the base of the jack for stability and so I don't have to have a separate base plate.
The drill has no problem on slow speed lifting the fully loaded Prado.

1st up, I always go for safety when lifting the vehicle. At home it is chassis stands as soon as the chassis is far enough off the ground to slide them under, away from home the wheel goes under the chassis rail as soon as it comes off. I've had to use jacks to lift a vehicle from flat on the ground once, it wasn't easy as nothing I had was made to go that low, I'm also glad no one was under it at the time.

I'm not a fan of scissor jacks. Manufactures put them in vehicles for 1 reason; because they are cheap. By design they lack strength in all planes other than the vertical and will twist and fail if the load moves.

Even if you have a stand or a tyre under the vehicle for safety, if it moves and the vehicle tips off the jack, 9 times out of 10 the scissor jack will be stuffed and you will be stuck.

I like hydraulic bottle jacks as they are quick to lift and lower the load. If the vehicle moves and falls off the jack they can be quickly re-positioned to get it back. The down side is that they are precision equipment and a bit of dust or grit can see them leaking and not working or a seal can blow and it only useful as a chock and the handles are rather short, so you are a bit too close to being under the vehicle for my liking.

I don't think you can go past the Toyota issue screw bottle jack, they are basic, have long handles so you don't have to get under the vehicle, but if you don't fill them up with sand then there is nothing much to go wrong with them.