What you need
- A floor jack that fits under your car and lifts past your stands' lowest setting
- A matched pair of jack stands
- At least one wheel chock, preferably two
- Your owner's manual, for the lift and support points
- A slotted pinch weld pad if your car has pinch welds
Step 1: the ground decides everything else
Flat, solid and level. Concrete is ideal. Sound asphalt works, with the caveat that a stand's foot can sink into it in hot weather — which is what wide formed bases like Hein-Werner's 7-5/8 x 8-3/4 in are for.
What does not work: any slope, gravel, grass, dirt, or a driveway with a cross-fall. A slope loads both the jack and the stands sideways, in the one direction neither is designed for, and it gives the car somewhere to go. If your driveway slopes and the street is flat, use the street. Jacking up a car on gravel covers the difficult surfaces honestly.
Steps 2 and 3: securing and chocking
Engine off. Automatic in park, manual in gear. Parking brake on — with one exception: if you are working on the rear brakes, the parking brake acts on the very components you are about to service, so leave it off and rely on the transmission plus chocks on both sides of a front wheel.
The chock goes at the opposite end from the lift. Lifting the front? Chock a rear wheel. It is the cheapest item in this entire procedure and it is what stops the car rolling when one end is off the ground.
Step 4: finding the lift point
Your manual shows it, and most cars mark it — a notch in the plastic sill trim, a small arrow, or a visibly reinforced section of the seam. On a unibody car the structure is folded sheet metal and only specific reinforced areas are designed to carry a corner of the vehicle.
Do not improvise. A jack under a floor pan dents it; under a suspension arm, the arm moves as the load comes on; under a plastic under-tray, nothing good. Car jack points goes area by area.
Step 5: set the stands before you lift
This step is out of the order most people expect, and it is deliberate. Set both stands to the same height on the bench, by counting teeth or holes, before the car is in the air. That way you are never adjusting a stand while a car is being held above it, and you know in advance that your jack can reach past the setting.
Step 6: lifting
Pump until the saddle just contacts the lift point, then stop and look. Is it square? Centered? On the reinforced section and not the thin metal beside it? If the car has a pinch weld and you are using a slotted pad, is the seam sitting in the slot?
Then continue. You need the tire clear of the ground plus enough room to slide a stand underneath at its setting — which is usually more lift than feels necessary.
Step 7: the load transfer
Place the stands under structural metal — subframe, frame rail, reinforced sill point, or a solid rear axle — at matched heights. Then release the jack valve slowly and watch each saddle engage. If a stand tips, slides, or contacts on one edge only, stop, lift again, and reposition.
When the car's weight is on the stands, leave the jack in place, snug against the lift point but carrying nothing. It costs you nothing and it is one more obstruction if a stand moves. How to use jack stands safely is the detailed version of this step.
Step 8: the test
Push the raised corner firmly, front-to-back and side-to-side. It should feel dead. Rocking, creaking, or a small settling movement means something is not right — a saddle not bearing squarely, one base on uneven ground, or a stand not fully locked. Raise it on the jack and reset. Only after this test does any part of you go under the car.
Step 9: lowering
Everything out from under the car first. Lift on the jack just enough to unload both stands, remove them completely, then open the release valve slowly. Floor jack releases are often more sensitive than people expect, and dropping the last two inches is hard on the car and the jack.
If a wheel came off, the lug nuts get torqued with the car back on the ground, in a crisscross sequence — see how to torque lug nuts.
The standard behind all of this
Jacks, stands and ramps in the US are covered by ASME PASE, currently the 2024 edition, which sets design, construction, marking and owner-inspection requirements for all three. The procedure above is not a house style — it is the working expression of what that equipment is designed to do and what it is not.