Anyone have or familar with Advantage Lifts?

2QUIK6

Turbo Milk Jug displacmnt
Joined
May 28, 2001
They had a display at Barret Jackson and looked to be a very nice lift with several nice features, and reasonably priced. But, I failed to asked them where they are built / manufactured, and that is what I am wanting to know.
www.advantagelifts.us
If anyone has one made by Advantage, let me hear from you on what you think of them, and if you know where they are made.
Thanks
 
I have not seen these but I am familiar with quality lifts, and the cheap counterparts. Quick look at their website I observe the following.

Screams of the Chinese lifts I'm used to seeing out in the field.

Nowhere do I see any mention of ALI certification

Its not made in the states or it would be plastered all over website.

Not familiar with that 4-post design at all. No comment one way or the other.

Above all, what after sale support will you get? Service?

What are you looking for? Personal use? Just storage? Even Rotary and Challenger lifts have models that are imported. But they also have American made models.
 
I have seen the Advantage 4 post lift at Mecum Harrisburg last year . They had one set up for display , it very much mimics the Backyard Buddy design how the crossbars slide over the columns . It looked like a real nice well built lift in person .And as you said very reasonably priced .
Asking opinions about lifts usually turns into a battle of US vs . Chineses lifts with people saying they would never trust/buy a Chinese lift .It is easy to tell someone not to buy a Chinese lift when they're not the one spending the money . You guessed it , I have a Chinese lift and it's been fine . Actually I have 3 , a Chinese 4 post (Prokar) , a 2 post (Bendpak,which is partially built overseas) , and a midrise scissor lift (Rotary Revolution ,also their overseas version).They all have been fine , work great .
It all boils down to your budget , so after seeing the Advantage 4 post lift in person , I would def look into buying one .If you are a hobbiest , and are not a shop that it will be going up and down 50 times a day , any of these should last you a long , long time .
 
That is the exact reason I asked the question at the end of my statement. Are you a hobbiest? Or making a living with it.

Everybody always gets offended when you start talking about the inferiority of some of these Chinese lifts. All you have to do is stand next two two side by side and it doesn't take an engineering degree to see the differences.

Again ALI certification. That says it all.

I understand that a homeowner cannot afford to buy a premium lift. But I have stood under Chinese lifts that have so much deflection its scary. I have also seen some of the pathetic safety mechanisms on their 4-posters that are a joke. Obviously these are generalizations but it is what it is.

Its not the fact that they are made in China. Its that they are inferior as far as safety. Do smaller shops use them? Yes. Do they make out OK? Some.

Not trying to offend anybody. If your a homeowner you will probably be fine. Just be careful.

Do some research on ALI standards / certification.

If your a homeowner I understand there have to be compromises. Your not using it everyday, and loading it heavy
 
Don't be confused by my statements. There are some Chinese lifts that are ALI certified. Bendpak has quite a few.
 
I would be using it mainly for storage of my cars. I already have a Benwill 2-post that I have had for 10+ years and was in my buddy's shop for 5+ years before that and was refurbed just before I bought it from him. Used for all my working on vehicles, hobbiest use, I would have to relocate it to a different part of my garage. The Advantage lift looked to be a very strong lift, it didn't appear to be skimped on. I don't particularly like the cabling system under the tracks but probably all 4-posts are like this. I'm looking at the double wide 4-post to be able to lift 2 cars at once. It had a lot of nice features also.
But, if it is in fact Chinese made and I can find a similar product that is made in the USA for say about $1500-2k more, I would go USA made.
Thanks for the tip on the ALI cert, if I'm going to be under it, I would prefer it meet commerical needs as well, all it takes it one instance to seriously hurt or kill you.

Thanks for all of the info!
 
I emailed the sales folks at Advantage that I had cards for from talking to them asking about slack cable safety locks and ALI certification. I received a prompt reply indicating that their newest versions will have secondary locks, didn't exactly say if they were slack cable safetys or not. And that they are currently ETL and CE certified, and that by spring they would be ALI certified...So I guess we will see as a sales person can say almost anything. I was surprised on the ALI.org website, there were not many manufactures that were on their "certified" list. And several I clicked on their list were actually formal complaints about the lift company rather than being certified which was what the list was supposed to be. They must have off-shored their website as it is incorrectly laid out.
 
2QUICK6 , maybe in my reply the other person thought I was being defensive , I wasn't , I was merely saying that all 3 of my lifts are somewhat Chinese/overseas , mainly the Prokar 4 post .I was just saying I feel safe/confident with them . Lord knows I did an extensive amount of research on lifts every time I bought one .
The Bendpak and Rotary Revolution are their own lifts , but they do have overseas factories building some if not all the parts to them . With that , when you see the numerous full blown Chinese lifts , look close they are all exactly the same dimensions/capacities/designs/etc . From what I gathered , they are basically all built at the same factory ,but then different distributors here name them their own name and off you go.Example , my Prokar at the time looked exactly like the Eagle 4 post lift and numerous others , just a name change .
The Bendpak you will not see in another similar name , they build them for themselves and that's it.I do believe Bendpak and Rotary having involved oversaes factory (which is their factory) stand behind their name and do not want any issues to hurt that.I also believe Bendapk and Rotary put a lot more research and development than most others .
Another example , I drove to NH to Greg Smith Equipment to physically put my eyes on their brand called " Atlas " , mid rise scissor , then went to a local dealer of Rotary Revolution to see their mid rise , night and day , cylinders /lock/bracing/stricter/etc. ,so that is what I bought for my midrise .
I even joined Garagejournal forum to get input , check it out , very informative .
As I said ,I also seen the Advantage Lifts 4 post set up at Mecum Harrisburg last summer, and thought it looked very well built and very similar to Backyard buddy but with a couple thousand dollar savings.
If you have no issue paying $1,200-2,000 more for your ease of mind being all USA built , the Backyard buddy would be the way to go.
The one thing I didn't like that BYB did was show a 4 post lift collapse and use it to their advantage for marketing , when that actual incident was not a lift structure failure , but the individual that it did happen to responded on a forum saying it actually was his own fault , user error , not the lift.But youy can see , someone can take that a run with it .
You do have a big decision to make as whatever lift you buy , you are spending some good money and want to hopefully have and use it for a long time.
 
I appreciate all that has been posted. I continued to dig and search and found a very long and also informative post and someone on there does have an Advantage lift.
http://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c1-and-c2-corvettes/3599795-advantage-four-post-lifts.html
I believe in this post, there is talk about the BYB not being USA made now, yet I stumbled upon their website which has it all over it indicating made in the USA.
Another of of the sales folks responded to my email from last night, his response was more Salesman type, just claiming theirs is better and doesn't need ALI certification..blah blah blah. It had no credibility to me compared to the other response that indicated there were some additional features coming in reguards to safety locks..maybe not slack cable safety locks, but additional safety none the less. I think after reading the post link above from the vette forum, I thoroughly understand what the issue is, and 99 times out of 100 is user error not paying attention to all 4 corners when lowering.
I will probably decide late in the year on the lift...and it all depends on what cars I get rid of if any before my next car purchase I hope around mid-year.
 
I talked to a rep at Mecum and he said they are made in China.

Just putting my 2 cents in here but I just bought a new lift the day after Christmas. It is an Atlas 408-SL and it is great.

64beb33e4e4aff2e44e45e4d96aac9ca.jpg


Our Flex also fits nicely too! Could have lifted it up more but I'm vertically challenged and I was changing the oil.

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I have looked at the Atlas and they are very nicely made and they too are made in China. I don't think there is any way to get around that anymore, so you have to determine if its cheap china or ok china or well built china at this point.
 
I'll ad some more input ,while I really like and am totally satisfied with my Bendpak 9k lb 2 post lift , I don't care for their 4 post lifts as the locks have to have an air supply to operate , so there are 4 solenoids , 1 at each corner , more stuff to go wrong/not operate correctly . I like having a positive connection (rods) to the locks , NTM , on my 4 post you can visually see them when you look underneath to verify they have unlocked .
Either way , once you have a lift , you will never want to lay on your back again to work on cars . You'll wonder how you got by all theses years without one !!!!
Good luck with your search and decision !!!
 
I accidentally tested the safety locks on mine already. Wasn't paying attention to the hose when I was seeing how close the car would get to my garage lights and the hose got caught on the hydraulic tank and came apart. I make hydraulic hoses at work so I went to the mill and made a new hose that was a little longer. When the hose blew the GN was on it and the Legacy was underneath but the locks stopped the car from falling.
 
I already have a 2-post Benwill that I will keep, so at this point I'm only interested in 4-post lifts to have additional storage...specifically the double wide / dual 4-post that will lift 2 cars up at once. I'm finding that many of the lifts mentioned do not have a dual 4-post lift...its not something a general shop would want usually. So you are back to a demand situation where only the hobbiest would wnat it for more space like me, so its back to cost and demand...so most are going to have many if not all Chinese made components.
 
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