My Macan is due for a PDK service. I watched the DIY video for it, it is $200 in fluids/parts and 1 hour labor. Local specialty shop quoted me $1,000. I kinda like tinkering on the car, but I hate jacking the thing up, with four stands to get it level and all the hassle and being under there when it is on stands gives me the creeps. Anywho, I have plenty of room in the garage for a Quickjack, and the thing would literally pay for itself in about a year if I switched from the specialty shop doing easy fluid changes on both p-cars to doing it myself. You can get them for $1,600ish, but the Googles tells me they go on sale a few times a year for a few hundred off.

Anyone have experience? How do you like them? Other suggestions welcome.

I would prefer the scissor lift that is sunk a foot into the garage floor, those are closer to $6k plus install. Could also be this year's project to undertake but I am leaning toward throwing money into a big bank of ground mounted solar panels to screw up my back this year.

https://quickjack.com/

 

I borrowed some for a long project on an ND. It was nice for that because I was pulling the entire drivetrain, stripping everything from the firewall forward, getting the frame repaired by a shop and then putting it all back together. It was very nice for that due to having to raise and lower the car a lot. But my negatives below

I can put a car on jack stands as quickly as I can get the quick jacks set up, lined up and raised. So it really saved no time there and I found moving them around to be a PITA. If you have a place where you could leave them ready next to the car and just slide them under it would be better. But does not really save much effort in raising the car for short jobs. When needing to raise the car as high as you can they are faster in that with jack stands you tend to have to raise in stages to get to max height so the QJ wins there.

No side access. So when we were pulling the engine and trans (pulled both together) and I had to get back under the car , I either had to slide in all the way from the back or shimmy between the hoist and the car and slide in all the way from the front. That was annoying.

My personal opinion, I would never buy one for general maintenance. I just see no benefit over using a good jack and jack stands personally. And I can store the jack and stands easier and they are far easier to move around.

If they were built where you could leave them in a spot with hoses connected and drive over them that would be great but at least the one I used you cannot do that so they have to be moved.

If you are pulling engines more often it would be nice since you end up raising and lowering the car more than once sometimes.

 

I have them as well. I bought them for my C7 since it was not as easy to jack up as my other cars.

I agree with what engifineer said. If you're a little OCD like me, it will take about the same amount of time to set up the QJ. However, everything after that is significantly easier (raising, lowering, adjusting) since you are doing all 4 contact points at once.

I just leave them under the C7 24/7, with lines pointing out towards back of the garage and coming around to the wall where the pump sits, so nothing is in the way of getting cars in/out of the garage. When I need them, I just slide them into position. I don't find them that hard to slide but they are a bit hefty.

Side access is an issue. So if you need to work on the middle of the car, that will be annoying with having to approach from front or back and having to shimmy your body into position (or use a crawler if you have room).

 

Thanks for the feedback.

There are a few people out there that sell kits to put some kind of bearing casters or wheel on them to move them easily. I would probably hang them on the wall, but I see a lot of people just scooch them together on the floor in one stall and just drive over them so they sit under one of your parked cars all the time. That could work, but I also have to get my lawn tractor and ATV plow rig in and out all the time.

Mostly I am thinking these will be good because the Macan is a bit heavier and I think I like the quickjack makes me more comfortable than stands, but I could use to teach my nephews how to do basic car stuff as they kind of have an absentee dad and have no clue how to do the simplest things on cars. Mostly I would be doing brakes and fluid changes.

That does give me some food for thought. I am leaning a bit toward trying it out, and if I don't like them after saving $800 on one Macan service, I can Craigslist it for half price and be out pretty much nothing.

 

They do have wheels on one end, but once you lay the down you have to scoot them. Each side weighs about 75 lbs IIRC. So if a bad back or anything, hanging them up may get old. If you do I would put hooks higher so they can hang vertical, then you can roll them over there and only have to pick them up a short distance. Again, not that 75 lbs is a lot but if you have any sort of issues restricting lifting just keep that part in mind.

 

Yeah, I kind of figured that would be the case. I had a rough time trying to raise the Cayman and get it level for an oil change and stopped doing them, but the nice thing is, if you could life it up with the Quickjack, nearly everything I would attempt is really easy access from the back, you just need a few inches of height to tuck your head under the muffler and you can reach everything you need to by rolling in a creeper a foot and a half under the car from the back end. Easy peasy.

For SUV height stuff, I generally just drive the front up onto a couple pieces of 2X12, shimmy under the front and pop the drain plug. The Macan has a whole 12 bolt under engine tray that has to come out every time, and the transmission drain is much farther back. I think the QJ would help a lot. They do look a tad cumbersome though. Thanks for the feedback.

 

I use QJ on my macan.
has made life easier as most of my cars require couple jacks and couple stages to lift, yes it takes some time to set up but once it’s up it’s much easier to raise nice and high and saves your back.

If your car has air suspension - need to disable the auto leveling by holding the low level button for 10 seconds. Otherwise it’s routine.

porsche dealer is crazy. They quoted me $590 for oil change, lmao. I can see that on a dry sump gt3 but this is an Audi engine

 

German car things. My friend got quoted $865 for pads and rotors from BMW. I did it in 30 minutes for beer And worse, when those ridiculous sacrificial sensors said they needed pads, the pads were nowhere near done. So first time I fixed the sensor to turn the light off and told him to let me check them again in another 5000 miles. Turned out they probably could have gone 10,000 more miles at that point. But after 5k he was going cross country and just had me change them. Going by the BMW sensor/light, he would have wasted money throwing away perfectly good pads. Dont get me started on replacing a squealer tab that works just fine with a sensor you have to replace Im going to go scream at a cloud now

 

Dealers are only going to use original parts though, aftermarket stuff is cheaper for sure, but I wouldn't say they're the same. I opted to have the brakes done on my Rover at my independent shop last summer, they were about half what the dealer was charging but for aftermarket parts. I do notice a big difference with brake dust and initial bite with the new brakes, not sure I'd bother saving the money again.

P dealer charges me under $300 for an oil change for the 911, mine is still under warranty so I take it there.

 

Yes the prices are crazy for some really easy stuff.

Funny thing is, I told myself I was tired of getting dirty under cars and I could afford to have someone else do it. I spent my 20's and 30's collecting tools and learning how to do things. Even if I had unlimited funds I can't help myself. I spent so much time scoffing at people who would never try to do something out of fear of screwing it up and paying out the nose, now I feel stupid if I pay someone to do it. I take on a major project every year, and if there is nothing to do I pace around the house looking for busy work. There is a sense of accomplishment when you finish tasks, but I also feel useless if I am not doing something.

Here in Minnesota, in the winter when you can't get much done, on the weekends I will go out and chip at ice in the driveway with the ice scraper and my wife just makes fun of me out working and accomplishing nothing but chipping at ice when I could just be inside and sit still. When it gets warm and spring takes hold, you don't really have to do that because the weather report says 40's and sun and the weather will take care of all of it it in a weekend. But we go for a walk with the dog and see several guys out in their driveways in the warm sun chipping at ice. It has to be a man thing that you need to be doing something or you feel useless.

I am pretty sure picking up one of these contraptions is probably in my future.