"Body of Car Fell Through Jack" ―Don't Make This Common DIY Mistake, Warning

A car owner recently asked a repair question on a Reddit r/Mechanic Advice post that led to a waterfall of comments on the thread that was more critical than helpful due to the mistake the car owner made is life-threatening, if not downright scary, because it involves the most basic of all DIY mechanic skills―raising a car safely with a jack and supporting the vehicle with jack stands.

Okay. I get it. Many of the comments were harsh, but perhaps for good reason. Sometimes shaming works better than coddling to ensure someone understands the seriousness of what they did wrong.

Here is the post below.

The Value of the Post: Learning from Others' Mistakes…and Other's Comments!

If you read the post and take a close look at the attached images, it appears that at some point, a jack was used to raise the vehicle, which he apparently was successful at. However, he ran into problems when he decided to put a jack stand under the car as an added safety measure. The jack stand was placed under a weak floor panel rather than a recommended designated reinforced jack point.

While we cannot be 100% sure of the particulars of how he got the car raised to begin with and whether or not he knew enough to use the typical manufacturer jack points near each of the tires and did so, my guess is that he made the jack stand mistake because he needed the jack to go to the other side of the vehicle to raise the other front tire as well.

In other words, he might have known how to use the recommended jack points to raise a vehicle but did not know what to do now that a jack was occupying the small welded pinch spaces he needed for the jack stand.

If this is the case, then, in fact, he needed an answer to two common questions some car owners have:

(1) If my jack is on the jack point pinch weld, how do I get a jack stand under the jack point when the spot is only a couple of inches wide and the jack is in the way?

(2) Is it okay to place the jack stand right beside the welded pinch space?

These are legitimate questions, and, in my opinion, many DIY car owners get them wrong based on this fact and the confusion it causes: Traditional jack stands are not designed for modern cars, and modern cars are not designed for traditional jack stands.

How Jack Stands Are Misused Today

Back in the good old days, it was a simple matter of knowing when and where to place jack stands under your vehicle. Large frame assemblies, known as body-on-frame chassis, made of heavy steel were easily accessible and the strongest point for supporting a vehicle off of its wheels on jack stands.

Today, however, many cars are built with a unibody design where the frame and body are one piece and made of significantly less robust materials. Because of this, jack points are located on specific reinforced areas (the pinch weld jack points) on the body rocker panels near each wheel. If you try jacking up a vehicle anywhere but the exact jack point of a unibody design, you risk damaging the body and/or the vehicle slipping off, resulting in a potentially serious physical injury.

Why jack stands are not practically designed for those unibody welded jack points is this: If you notice the typical car jack in today's car, the portion of the jack that fits into the jack weld point is channeled to prevent bending or crumpling of the pinch weld jack point metal. However, a traditional jack stand contact plate is wider and usually flat or slightly ridged with a rise on each side of the face. When a flat-faced jack stand plate contacts the unibody jack point weld, you risk damaging the jack point because the two are smashed directly against each other.

To put it another way, this violates what I refer to as "mechanic best practices" ―Never use the wrong tool for the wrong part.

To clarify, here is an interesting video in which the host makes a good case for building adaptors for jack stands that can be used on a modern car's jack point.

Stop Bending your Pinch Welds! DIY Jack Stand Adapters / Protectors

Toyota is Unclear on Its Jack Stand Use Owner Policy

The best advice is to always read the owner's manual before attempting any service or maintenance task on a car. However, manuals have their shortcomings if not bad advice.

For example:

A close inspection of my spouse's 2024 Toyota RAV4 owner's manual reveals that the only thing the manual states regarding jack stands is: "Use a jack stand if it is necessary to get under the vehicle" under the "Steps to Take in an Emergency" section.

However, this is not included within the subsection part of "Replacing a Flat Tire" but under the subsection "Using the Tire Jack" that immediately follows the "Do not raise the vehicle to a height greater than that required to replace the tire" instructions.

Related article: Toyota RAV4 Diagnosis and Fix You Can Do

In other words, Toyota does not explicitly state that the jack points on the unibody welded jack points are okay or not okay for jack stand use. Rather, it is inferred it is, but I wonder whether this could become a warranty breaker if you were to walk into a Toyota Dealership with a "Hey, I need my rocker panel jack point repaired" complaint after lowering your car on a jack stand.

The Real-World Practice of Experienced DIY Car Owners

In the Real World, many use the unibody pinch weld jack points with traditional jack stands for added safety. One post on the Rav4World website related to the use of jack stands on a Toyota RAV4 illustrates that this is common practice. One commenter states he uses the four jack points on the body of his RAV4 with a jack stand but does so with a piece of channeled wood block as a jack stand face adaptor to avoid damaging the jack point.

Other experienced DIY car owners also often use a subframe point that can handle the vehicle's weight on a jack stand, which is preferable to using a jack point on the rocker panel. However, because cars differ quite a bit in their frame type and style, it is not recommended for a novice who is unsure which points under the vehicle are acceptable. Ask a mechanic if there is any doubt before trying this.

The Jack/Jack Stand Question That Presumably Led to the Reddit Poster's Mistake

So, how do you properly and safely use jack stands when trying to solve the "How do I get a jack stand under the jack point when the jack is already supporting the car at the jack point" question that I surmised was the root of the Reddit poster's problems?

What the poster probably did not know was that unibody cars typically have two additional jack points aside from the four near the wheels under the rocker panel: one each in the center front and center rear area under the car, requiring a floor jack (any other kind would be unsafe) to raise the front and rear ends respectively if either end needs both wheels off the ground for a repair.

In other words, for the two-wheels-up type of work, you raise the end of the car with a floor jack using the center jack points and then place the jack stands at each set of rocker panel jack points. For just a tire change, you use the scissors jack that came with the car at the appropriate rocker panel jack point alone and no jack stand while following all of the safety recommendations in the owner's manual, such as raising the wheel off the ground no higher than needed to remove the tire and not placing any part of your body between the car and the road in case the jack fails.

Please Note: You must remove the plastic splash panels under the car before using the center jack points, or you risk damaging them while using the floor jack to lift the car.

For additional DIY warning-related articles, be sure to check out these selected three:

• Is Harbor Freight's Plastic Car Ramp Safe for DIY Mechanics?
• Scissor Lift Review for Small Garages
• Best Floor Jack Comparison Tests Reveal Which Harbor Freight Jack to Buy and Which to Probably Avoid

Timothy Boyer is an automotive reporter based in Cincinnati who currently researches and works on restoring older vehicles with engine modifications for improved performance. He also reports on modern cars (including EVs) with a focus on DIY mechanics, buying and using tools, and other related topical automotive repair news. Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimBoyerWrites for daily news and topics related to new and used cars and trucks at Torque News, as well on Facebook and his automotive blog "Zen and the Art of DIY Car Repair."