As described in my earlier review of the Challenger 4-post storage lift, the optional rolling bridge jacks that allow the car to be lifted off the runways have a critical design flaw: their arms don’t spread wide enough to reach the jacking points on most modern unibody cars. Some detective work revealed that Challenger does make extension pieces for the bridge jack arms, but at $800!! a pair. That’s ironically the list price of the entire rolling bridge jack itself. A pair of extensions is obviously required for each bridge jack, so if you have two bridge jacks to lift the entire car at once (for brake service, etc.), you’d be looking at $1600 for four pieces of metal that are needed to get the jacks to be functional, doubling the price of the jacks themselves.

A bit more research led me to SVI International, an Illinois company that makes parts and accessories for automotive lifts and other commercial garage equipment. I sent them dimensions and they made perfect extensions for me at $210 a pair, a fraction of what Challenger charges.

I still stand by the various reasons why I chose Challenger for a 4-post residential lift over Bendpak, Atlas, etc. Other than the design flaw of the bridge jacks, and the even more flawed pricing of Challenger’s solution to the issue, I’ve been very pleased with the lift as a whole. Luckily there are companies like SVI who can come up with effective, economical solutions. A review and SVI contact information follow:

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