Hold Up Your Car with the Best Jack Stand

Torin is one of the best jack stand manufacturers out there, with an extensive line of different products. For extra security, these are double locking jack stands with the first lock being the ratchet mechanism and they also have a pin to ensure the stands can’t slip; either one will hold the jack stand in place, should the other fail. Be sure to buy the model with the “A” suffix, as that is the designation for the pin. There’s also a combined carry handle and ratchet release.

The range of these stands is 11.2 to 16.5 inches and while enough for working on a car, you might want to look at their taller stands for a pickup truck or SUV. Torin makes the same jack stand in a 6 ton model, for those who have heavy-duty vehicles.

This is a great idea that Powerbuilt (also known by the name “Alltrade”) came up with. This model combines a three ton hydraulic bottle jack with its own jack stand. The height of the sliding upper portion of the stand can be run up to the bottom of the vehicle and locked with a pin. The hydraulic jack is then used to lift the vehicle higher, with a ratchet and pawl to lock it in place and keep it from dropping due to oil leaks. A very unique unit, it’s perfect for SUVs with a range of 11 to 21 inches. This product is sold as single units, not in pairs.

Typical jack stands don’t work all that well for SUVs and pickup trucks, due to the greater height of these vehicles. Realizing this, Torin has built a set of jack stands specifically targeting SUVs. These three ton jack stands have a range of 14 to 20.68 inches, making them much more appropriate for use with these vehicles and their higher ground clearance. This enables you to lift the vehicle, without having to balance the jack stand on a couple of blocks of wood; a much safer situation. These jack stands come with a double locking pawl, but not the additional locking pin that we talked about with the Torin 3 Ton Double Locking Jack Stands that are my number one pick.

These stands from Dynamo Tools are actually designed for use in conjunction with a vehicle lift. While most of us don’t have one of those available, I’ve seen some guys that had some pretty ingenious ways of lifting vehicles in their home garages. The range on these stands is from 30 to 53 inches, putting them in a whole other league than the typical jack stand. They are also useful in conjunction with a pit for holding transmissions and engines when mounts have to be removed.  If you’re jury rigging some sort of lift, you need jack stands even more than the guy that’s using a jack.

For those that have larger vehicles, such as motorhomes, this pair of stands from Torin is ideal. They will hold as much as 12 tons of weight, considerably more than the average jack stand. Like the SUV jack stands we’ve looked at, these come with the double locking pawl for safety. Even if one tooth of the pawl slips, the other one will catch the load. They also have a higher range than the average stand, going from 18-1/4 all the way up to 28 inches. Having pulled a motor from a motorhome, I can tell you that the extra height is a necessity.