Safe jacking points?

I think you could do an oil change without lifting the car, but that takes a lot of "braille" work. I suggest you get yourself a set of ramps. They make changing the oil a breeze.

 

This link should help, look under Info, oil change.
John's Stuff - Toyota Prius and more

As for a flat, does the manual show anything?

 

For changing a wheel (flat) there are notches on the side sill weld tabs. The jack (scissor jack that comes with the car) goes there. One just behind the front wheel, and one just ahead of the rear wheel on each side. If you want to use a floor jack there you should make an adapter so you don't bend the weld tab.

For oil changes, just use a small ramp - I use 2X8s with one 2X4 under one end. You can actually do the oil change without the ramps too. You may need the "socket type" oil filter wrench. Or an oil filter wrench that turns 90 deg. (it's a tight space around the filter). Once you remove the original oil filter, if you're careful you won't need a wrench for the rest of the changes.

Toyota says you should change the oil drain plug gasket each time you change the oil. I find this extreme overkill. Do purchase one or two and keep them in the car, "just in case" you break or loose one.

 

Use ramps ... much safer.

 

When I change my oil I use the jacking point just behind the left front wheel to raise the car so the drain plug is the lowest point of the pan.

I use jack stands and place a stand near the front jacking point so I can move the jack to the rear and rotate the left side tires while the oil drains.

 

See this thread for diagrams and photos

http://priuschat.com/forums/care-ma.../35358-jacking-lifting-points-your-prius.html

 

Heavy Duty Car Jack

Does anyone have this jack? Seems like a good deal. Is it a low enough profile to reach the recommended jacking points?

 

I would guess no if you are looking to jack the car up from the front center jacking point. I’m not sure if the low profile jack would work. The good thing about Harbor Freight is you can return it if it doesn’t work. All you lose is the gas to the store and back. You can use some 2x8’s to raise the front of the car enough to use a regular jack. I use 3 stacked in lifts. Like steps.

 

I have to jack-up my 2008 Gen 2 on gravel, sooo... the floor jack can't roll as the arm lifts, sooo... the arm tries to pull the car. This is no problem when jacking on the approved frame members in the front (lift point slides a bit along the frame). But, jacking on the approved lift point at the back (ahead of the wheel well) requires a much higher lift to clear the tires from the ground, and there is no room for 'slippage' at that lift point as the lift arm tries to pull the car back.
Is there any way I can safely leave the car running in neutral, long enough to allow the front tires too roll back a bit as the jack arm lifts & pulls the back lift point? I'm uncomfortable jacking up any car with the motor running.
Thanks!

 

Gravel is a bad surface to work on. If at all possible find a level slab of concrete somewhere and work there. On gravel jack stands can tip over, and as you have discovered, the floor jack has issues.

Anyway, to deal with the immediate problem, put a thick piece of plywood down under the back of the car, put the floor jack on it, jack it up, put jack stands on the side (each on a piece of wood, see below), and lower it onto the jack stands. The jack should roll on the wood, unless maybe the wood is too soft, then the wheels will sink into the wood. Stack some lumber or something else incompressible on both sides under the pinch welds, to catch the car if a stand (or stands) fail. Give the car a good shake (from the side!) to verify that it is securely supported. That would be good enough to pull off the tires and work on brakes and such, but under no circumstances would I go underneath a vehicle under those conditions.

If you must work on gravel the jack stands need a better footing. Obtain pieces of 1' x 1' x 1" flat plywood. Clear a region larger than that of gravel where the jack stands will be placed and flatten the surface. The prepared surface should be dead flat. Preset the wood in those positions and verify that they are flat on the ground (don't tip at all). I would do this with the car not yet in place so that you can jump up and down on the wood so that it beds in. Then position the car. A jack stand probably won't break a piece of plywood that thick. It might dig into it a little, which would be OK. Actually it would be a good thing, because you don't want any possibility of the jack stand sliding on the wood base. Here is one discussion about using this:

https://community.cartalk.com/t/is-my-working-area-safe/107005/33

(Concrete blocks could be used instead of wood, but there are all sorts of different concrete mixes, and some are more prone to cracking and crumbling than others. So I would be really hesitant about using some random paver block from Home Depot in this application.)

 

When the car is powered on, set the parking brake (also use wheel chocks) and shift to neutral. Remove the PCON fuse or relay from the underhood fusebox then turn off the car (it should stay in neutral).

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

^ Fixed.

2nd gen front lift point is way back (per @georgina Rudkus’ illustration). To get a floor jack back there, and have enough room for the jack handle to operate, you may need to run the front wheels up on low-rise ramps. These can be as simple as a couple of layers of 2x on the flat.

for the rear lift point, yeah it is quite high (assuming sim to my gen 3). I mod the cradle on mine, sub a flat rubber cradle, stack a pair of 2x squares atop (doweled together, very solid), and top that with a hockey puck.

All told there’s then just a few inches clear, and my floor jack’s 3 ton with 19~20” max lift height. there’s 3 ton jacks available (quite easily in the states) with around 23” max lift; Harbor Freight’s Pittsburg jack for one.

regarding safety stand placement, there are better locations than the flimsy knife-edge points proscribed in Owners Manual (for scissor jack). Gen 2 is sim to my gen 3; what I’m using:

At front, the leading end of the main underbody “rails”.

at rear, the reinforced humps at oblong locator pin holes.

I’ll post a few pics later, try to clarify.

 

Highly recommend the ramps as well. I have some cheap plastic ramps from Menards that work great, before that I built a set like these and used them.

Also the jack that comes with Priuses is very tipsy in my opinion. If the ground isn't immaculately flat it's gonna be looking for a reason to fall on you. It's not picky either, a stiff breeze, a mean look, seismic waves from a kid on a trampoline in New Zealand, all seem to cause it to tip over. If it had a wider base I think it would be a lot better.

 

Heavy rubber wheel chocks fore and aft of the two wheels opposite the end you’re raising will really stabilize things.

I wouldn’t use the scissor jack for anything other than side-of-road swap to spare, and have a pair of wheel chocks in the car for this; place them fore and aft of diagonally opposite corner (owners manual advocates the chocking, but of course does not supply, at least not in NA). A small square of 3/4” plywood really helps the scissor jack stability on soft ground too. Toyota’s supplied scissor jack IS lousy; the crank point in particular: Hondas style much better.

 

Stuff I put on the jack cradle, substitute cradle, plus some DIY low-rise ramps. The ramps are mainly for getting the jack started with way under jack points. I had a bunch of 2x4 so used them on edge, but on the flat 2x is simpler. Also wheel chocks and safety stands, 3 and 6 tons both useful.

 

Wood is prone to splitting along the grain lines if the board is flexed or subjected to shear stress. In that ramp it looks like all the grain is aligned (parallel to the plane of the wheel) except for the little bit on top. To avoid this, some ramps are cribbed - the direction of the wood changes in each layer. Much harder to make, but also much less likely to crack all the way from one end to the other. Or the ramp could be made of thick plywood, where each piece of wood has the grain running in various directions in each layer. Plywood has its own Achille's heel - if it gets wet it will eventually delaminate.

 

Wood is fine, if correctly used and maintained. Ramps can be made of HDPE like Rhino Ramps, which has less compression strength than even Balsa.

Wood is a structural material having greater loading strength than most plastics excepting POM (polyoxymethylene or Delrin used to support heavy loads in industrial production.

With the spread of a load spread over a wide surface area, wood is just fine and still remains the material of choice in home construction.

Protected from the weather and termites, it will last for centuries.

 

I had a 50/50 chance of getting it right; thanks for the tip, got lucky:


There’s locator dowels between the layers.