Review: 5/5 SGS 3 Tonne Heavy Duty Trolley Jack

dandamano

dandamano

Well-known user
Aug 12, 2011
5,822
4,904
Wolverhampton
Purchased from Ebay
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/171028680739

Price - £79.98

Good - Excellent price . Quality of the jack is brilliant , feels very strong and constructed well. Long handle to lift with ease . This can lift a car very high into the air. Used it for the first time today to do an oil change on the focus and lifted the front of the car with only three pumps of the handle, low profile to fit under the car with ease

Bad - This is one for home use only, it is very large and weighs in at 35kg so not one to have chucked in the boot for emergency

For a Trolley jack for use at home id reccomend this one, the sheer size and weight of it gives a great amount of safety. This gets a 5 out of 5 rating from me

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This is all it needed to lift the front of the focus up, plenty more to give

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Looks ideal. My Sealey jobbie, great though it is, is just too tall for 2 of the 3 cars we run. I'm giving it to my mate with a view to getting a low profile one, that looks just the ticket.
 
I could do with a new one, my old Lake and Elliott that originally sat in my Hillman Imp is starting to leak. I can also highly recommend using a 'saddle pad' to save the underseal and paintwork. Beware, some of them are not rubber and have no give in them at all, but the slot is great on sills...

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I have had one of these SGS jacks for a few years now and i have found it to be very good, only issue i had was one of the rear wheels was buckled and wouldnt turn, complained they sent me out new wheels (y)

With this jack i only ever lift the car on a subframe, especially as they are getting older the sills are just to fragile
 
Foobar said:
I could do with a new one, my old Lake and Elliott that originally sat in my Hillman Imp is starting to leak. I can also highly recommend using a 'saddle pad' to save the underseal and paintwork. Beware, some of them are not rubber and have no give in them at all, but the slot is great on sills...

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I've been using these for years, except i just buy the standard ice hockey pucks and cut the slot in myself. Last one i bought was £1 from the local sports shop. :)As Paul says though, very rarely use the sills for lifting but always stick an axle stand under there with one of these sat on top just to spread the weight for when/if the jack settles.
Btw, i like the large saddle on that jack. A lot of trolleys now only have the 2" saddle which can be awkward at times but perfect for the subby bolt.
 
Procomm said:
I have had one of these SGS jacks for a few years now and i have found it to be very good, only issue i had was one of the rear wheels was buckled and wouldnt turn, complained they sent me out new wheels (y)

With this jack i only ever lift the car on a subframe, especially as they are getting older the sills are just to fragile
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I agree, it makes me cringe to jack up with the sills, but at least this spreads the load out a bit better than the Ford jack in the boot ! ( just don't get a puncture )
 
Thinking of getting one of these as I'll need one for my MSFM. SGS have some great deals on their website. Anyone know how much a Cougar weighs and whether a 2 tonne jack would be just as good?
 
Catamount said:
Thinking of getting one of these as I'll need one for my MSFM. SGS have some great deals on their website. Anyone know how much a Cougar weighs and whether a 2 tonne jack would be just as good?
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Your entire Cougar's curb-weight is something like 1380kg with a full fuel tank. Lifting a corner of it wouldn't even come close to stressing a 2-tonne jack. Assuming you could find a way to mount it, you could lift the entire car.

The better things to consider are;

1) Is it a reputable manufacturer? TüV approval is good here because you can be sure of the weight rating.
2) It is low enough that you can put a block of wood on the cup when lifting on the rear chassis rails?
3) Is the handle good and long, and does it have enough throw to clear your sills when jacking on a chassis rail or the subframe?

What Dan posted looks excellent, and if they do a 2tonne (or 2.25tonne) version which is markedly cheaper, buy that.

One last thing. While you want your jack to be as safe as possible, nobody should be near the car while you're lifting it; the only time anyone should be under the chassis is when it's securely dropped on axle stands. That being the case, you should be more worried about the construction of those.
 
2 Tonne will be fine Sam, im just a nutter who thinks the bigger the better :LOL:

As Chris said above get it from a reputable company like SGS are

Eurocar parts have good deals too. I got my axle stands from them a couple years ago for a bargain, a good set of those is a must too - never trust a jack alone no matter how strong it may seem
 
I agree that you don't need one as such, but my God does it make lifting quicker. Especially with that excellent jack that your review is about, with its collosal reach.

Also, it means you can place both axle stands at once. When I was helping him in the pits with his Tuscan racer, Dave Chant's dad taught me to look out for the car rolling off the first axle stand while you lift the second side. This beam eliminates that risk without needing a spotter.



TL;DR: It's not necessary, but if you have the cash and the frequent need to lift cars off the deck, you won't regret having one to hand. Make sure it suits the jack you buy though - it doesn't look like it would work with the 2-tonner that SGS sells, only the 3-tonne and 3-tonne low-profile.
 
After 18 months this jack has given up the ghost :(

Ive emailed SGS to see if this is the expected life of the Jack, I only use it a couple times a month at most so I would have expected it to last a lot longer than that
 
My Sealy 2.5 tonne jack was always known as "SJ" because it'd slam the car to the deck when you wound it off. Turned out that I just hadn't done the servicing correctly, meaning that it was useful-but-dangerous. It's perfect now though.

Now I'm not saying you're as incompetent as me, but it'd be interesting to learn just how your jack failed in use. Is it creeping? Slamming the car down when you release it?
 
Its pretty strange what its doing it goes up and when the handle comes back down the jack pad comes down with it, if you dont push down on the handle it holds in place

I havent done any servicing on it, the manual that came with it said not to mess with it in any way or attempt to repair it otherwise dire things will happen and just to contact SGS
 
There is normally an authorised procedure to bleed a trolley jack and maybe to top up the jack oil which you can get at most motorist's discount shops ( I have a bottle ). The symptom you describe could indicate air has got in the wrong place. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what you do, but its pretty easy. I bought a new looking jack off a car boot sale and found it had a similar fault. It is fixed now, barring an annoying habit of dripping a little fluid from the 'lock' valve. I get around that by immediately relocking it until I get a new seal.

Here is the first YouTube video for doing something similar that I came across ( you may need a different one ) :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpt8lpnjAaE

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpt8lpnjAaE" target="_blank">
 
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