Yeah that is normal, think the manual says do not lift bellow a certain height as well.

 

I believe it says in the manual that there should be 1.5" of free clearance before car contact to lift properly. That is what the owner of the set I borrowed told me.

 

Was your pic after the incident? I am confused as to why the wheels were off the car before it was lifted and the safety locks engaged. At that point there is no way it would have fallen like that. You have to raise the car to remove the wheels, and you should always raise until the safety engages, then lower until it is sitting on the safety locks (not suspended by the hyrdaulics). Or did you have it up higher and need to lower it some after wheels were removed and then this happened?

Even on a full sized lift, best practice is to lower fully onto the next safety stop so it is not putting constant pressure on the hydraulics. Not that the system should fail like this at all, but much safer this way.

 

when the safety arms are properly engaged, there is no way it will fall down- again, properly positioning and checking the arms is critical. As mentioned above, the hydraulics should never hold the car up- never.
darcy