I had to change the front tire yesterday when I ran over a roofing nail. Lucky I stopped at In-and-Out Burger and the tire went flat while I was eating. Not at 70+ on the Interstate. The problem was that the jack was almost impossible to use. I ended up using the lug wrench to turn the jack. I needed the extra leverage since the included handle just didn't work. I never had this much problem jacking-up a car. (55 years driving and a few dozen different cars). Do I have a bad jack or is this a problem with Gen III? Next time I will call AAA.
The Prius jack if a piece of crap. Buy a low profile floor jack and put it in your rear under storage.
I haven't look at mine but I assume it's the same as others.. did you loop the crank rod through both holes?
Really? If you look on Amazon, you can find bottle jacks that are much more portable and should get the vehicle up high enough to change a flat.
You motivated me to have a look at it. First off, if it were raining it would be a bit of a production: you need to pull out the carpetted deck, then the undertray, and stow them, somewhere. The lever arm is the weak link. A bit too short, and pretty thin, not a good combo. I picked on a front corner, managed to get a wheel clear of the floor, but it was not a lot of fun. I'm not sure if my wife could manage it: she did come out (at my insistance, lol) and turned it a few revolutions. Actually she did pretty good. We also went over the locking nut, how to place the cheapy wheel chocks I'd got, where to place the jack, loosening the lug nuts a bit while the wheel's still on the ground. One thing I'm not sure of, I've found the aluminum wheels can freeze on the hub, due to disimilar metals or something. I don't know that I'd want to be kicking away at it in a muddy downpour... I looked at the lever arm after, it was pretty chewed up with one use. If it had an inch or two on the lever portion, and was a bit thicker, it would help. Even better would be some sort of sleeve hand grips, that rotate as you turn. Maybe a couple of short pieces of hose would do the trick.
Maybe stow away a cheater pipe bar with you in the trunk for more leverage since its not long enough.
Trouble with Prius Jack? For a second there, I thought you were having a problem with a member here. Never mind.
The jack is of poor quality, but no worse than any other modern cars with the same type of jack. Things are built fit for purpose these days, the purpose of the jack is just to change a wheel now and again, not built for everyday use. I reckon you'd probably get 20-30 wheel changes out of it before it collapses. I greased mine when I first used it, which didn't help much, it just made it easier to adjust when not under load to put it back in the wheel well.
Someone mentioned to check if the lever arm was hooked through both holes. That rang a bell, in that previous Honda's we've had a scissor jack of that design: the connection point was a bent plate U-bracket, with a hole in each leg. You hooked this "wand" hook bar through the holes (both). The other end of that bar was sort of rectangular in section, and this fitted into a slot in the supplied lug wrench. You gripped the wand with one hand, and cranked by gripping the socket end of the wrench. Worked, well: better.
Roomy just hit a pothole on the way home tonight in his Gen III, quick flat tire. The crank bent pretty good while trying to jack it up, ended up running the wrench through the hole and finishing it that way. Overall the jack did the job, but the arm crank was definitely not up to spec for the job.
