Hi,

Is it safe to hoist a civic via these roughly one foot rail frames directly underneath the the floor pan? Would doing so cause damage to the floor or brace? e.g. push up floor metal, dent or push through?

Points referring too are circled below.

 

i wouldnt advise doing it. on various parts cars i've had, ive seen them deform/dent significantly. not sure if its the rust belt doing it, or of its just a bad lift point. i've never done it on a car i wasn't junking. why lift there anyways? right in the same area are the factory lift points and rear subframe.

 

I was in the work bay when i saw the shop putting the hoist arms underneath it. I figured it's only a thin piece of metal welded to the floor of the car. Wouldn't the floor indent, etc? Mechanic claimed arms couldn't reach front jack points which was a lie because they later did that from the picture obviously taken.

 

you have lazy mechanics/technicians. These people want to argue about engineering type things and they really could not argue themselves out of a cardboard box. No, it's not the frame/unibody of the car, those metal arms/beams are reinforcements for the floor pan where the seats are. The frame rail is along the edge of the rails towards the door (with arrows pointing at them underneath), much closer to the hoist arms than where they did jack it up. Really stupid people and yes liars. I wouldn't go back to that place ever again. If they can't even raise the car correctly, and that's the most simple, then how can they really know what they're doing working on the car.

I actually have had to argue with a tow truck driver in the past, about where to pull the civic up onto the flatbed. This mental genius wanted to pull the car up onto the flatbed using the AXLES!! WHAT!?? Then he wanted to use the LOWER CONTROL ARMS!! I showed him where the TOW HOOKS were and he said "well that's just stupid".. I said "no, you're being stupid.. those are where the engineers designed it to be pulled, by the frame.. so how about we follow what the engineers did, unless you'd like to go to engineering college and get back to me?" Guy looked like he wanted to take a swing at me, too bad I'm a big guy! He did as I asked, but mumbling something about liability.. I just had to laugh. I never called that tow company again. Probably should've reported it, but why? This is who they hire! I may sound like a snob, but I'm not, there are lots of people out there in the automotive world that really have no business being around your car.

 

That's a pretty crazy store about the tow lift you needed. Luckily he actually listened or else you would have been calling someone else or walking I know i would have. It's shitty people we trust to work around cars or less qualified than someone like myself that just has simple understand that sheet metal braced by a 1 foot long piece of metal would have no structural support at all. Which irritates me even more is when i asked him what the hell do you think you are doing, that will crush my floor pan his response was "I've been doing this for 30 years i know how to hoist a car"

He replaced a wheel bearing 6 month ago and its ready to fall out again in the same location. Once i get the warranty part from him i am never going back.

 

That tech is an idiot, I always put my lift pads on the factory jack points not only is it engineered to be lifted(one of the few things I actually trusted engineers about lol) there but I didn't want to crawl around on the floor more than I had to that's why I was working with a car on the lift.