I always wondered this since I noticed that a lot of cars always have at least some damage to their pinch weld jack points, usually from hydraulic jacks, lack of adapters, or dropping the car onto jack stands hard. I get it not everyone has the right equipment or experience but it also seems like a poor and cheap design from the manufacturers. Why hasn’t there been a method or aftermarket product that kinda bulks up the pinch welds. Hell I don’t think I ever seen someone even weld or bolt on some steel to kind of guard the pinch welds from bending. Is there a reason for that, like structurally? Why are those hockey puck looking adapters the norm, just because its easier?
Tldr: Many vehicles suffer damage to their pinch weld jacking points from improper use of jacks, prompting the question of why there isn’t a robust aftermarket solution or protective design from manufacturers to prevent this issue, besides those hockey puck looking adapters?
Because it’s usually pointless to anyone that knows how to work on cars. I use the frame. Because it’s where I’m going to put a jack and it’s faster. The only one I use is on one side of my Camaro to lift it high enough to use the frame on the other side because it’s lowered. They may get damaged but it’s only use is the side of the road to change a tire.
Unibody cars, as in, the ones with the pinch welds under discussion, don’t have a frame
The sheet metal is the frame.
Which, in my opinion, is why nobody gives a shit-any car built like that was built to be disposable fucking garbage.
Unibodies do have a frame it’s just not a completely separate assembly like a ladder frame.
As others have said there are lots of places to jack a car. Nobody uses the flange on the rocker panels unless they’re trying to change a tire roadside with the emergency jack.
There’s almost always a subframe, and where it bolts to the car is my go-to jack point. Bolt #2 would get it.
This must be on modern monstrosities, I’ve literally never encountered this.
The newest vehicle I’ve ever had was a 95, and I am entirely unimpressed with anything made before 93
Exactly, jack points are an afterthought, it might have to be lifted for changing a flat, but otherwise it’ll be on a lift platform at a shop, you’re not hoisting it on Jacks at home to do work on it.
I mean, yeah I am. I don’t trust a shop to do it