ktlocklear

Today I lifted the front of the car with my floor jack as I normally do so I could change my front brake pads. As I was lifting it, the floor jack slipped off of the plastic center lifting pad with the front wheels off the ground Scared the shit out of me to say the least. The front wheels were still off the ground with the floor jack just in front of the center pad thing resting on the belly pan. I quickly lowered the floor jack. I looked under the car and popped the hood and had a look around. Nothing seemed out of place. I cranked the car and turned the steering wheel lock-to-lock, and I didn't hear anything out of the norm. I haven't driven it yet.

Now the big question.....what is above the belly pan just in front of the center lift pad? I know the floor jack couldn't have been holding the car off the ground by just the belly pan, could it? If I had to guess, I would say steering related parts are in that location, or maybe the sway bar?

Hopefully no damage was done.....I'm afraid to pull the belly pan off to find out

ktlocklear

no comments

healthservices

I'd pull the front belly pan off to check and see everything is ok.

Oh, use some jack stands, thats what they are for.

jaycal3

I 2nd the jack stands... thats why i refrained from commenting... Hope nothing is wrong... let us know.

healthservices

If you your jack slipped into the area just in front of the lift pad, the crankshaft may have stop the jack from going too far up into the engine compartment, but there is some lines directly under the crankshaft, the power steering lines for active steering, is there as well as the lines leading into the active sway bar.

ktlocklear

woooah fella's, I never said I didn't use jack stands. I ALWAYS use jack stands actually...but I didn't get that far....as stated in the first post, when I said "as I was lifting"



Thinking back though I think how it happened was that I lifted the car in the driveway for the first time. I always do it in the garage on the nice level smooth floor, but since i was going to be using brake cleaner, I decided to do it outside. Anyway,I remember my floor jacks wheel being stuck in the expansion joint on the driveway and as I was lifting the car the jack wasn't able to move with the car, like it does when the wheels aren't stuck. Obviously I didn't think about it at the time, but it makes sense now that is how it happened Live and learn I guess.

I just drove it for the first time. I didn't hear any weird noises, it didn't pull to side, a/c works fine, no leaks etc...so I think I got extremely lucky. The jack must of been resting on the cross member, otherwise I don't see how the wheels would have stayed off the ground.
I am going to pull the pan and see exactly what is in front of the pad and look for damage.

So far only thing that looks like will need replacing is the plastic foot pad thing as it got pulled off when the floor jack slipped

twobeemers

Ah, I don't think he got that far.....

jgt

Just in front of the pad is the sway bar. You should be good if you lowered it quickly. The bar is pretty burly.
I'd do a quick check of the sway bar links at each end which are the weakest points.
If you have ARS on the other hand my guess is it landed on the sway bar motor...

Same thing happened to me. I lifted the car too high and the jack slipped off the plastic pad.
I almost shit myself. After quickly lowering the car and a quick check of my underpants I removed the cover to check and saw the sway bar. For second I thought I clipped the A/C lines which are REALLY close to the bar. It was all good though. Shit happens.

ktlocklear

Exactly the same thing it sounds like. Glad I'm not the only one.
Yeah, I'll pull the cover off tomorrow and check it out to be safe. I do have Active Seering and all the other Active junk, but so far no errors, weird noises, etc. If I completely lucked out, i'll be surprised....as I usually don't have good luck like that....lol

I learned a lesson though....put wheel chalks behind the rear wheels.

healthservices

The thing you need to know is a floor jack does not always lift the car straight up and down. It lifts it up in an arc. Take a look at this picture and you can see that the lifted position is not directly over the lowered position. The car or the jack has to have free movement.



Normally as you raise the car the jack wheels would move toward the jack pad. But in this case the expansion joint in the driveway prevented the wheels from moving forward and because you most likely had the car in park/gear and/or had the parking brake on the car, the car could not move forward and stay on top of the jack. This caused the jack pad to lose contact with the jack.

The thing to remember is...

Make sure the jack can move freely under the car.

In this case having wheel chocks would not have prevented the car from falling. It could have made things worst depending on how they are placed.