No need for those expensive jack adapters/pucks and jack stands. You can do the same very cheaply and easily with just 3 things (jack, pucks, 2×6″ wood).
Why is jacking up a Tesla car so difficult?
Many people don’t understand this point until it comes time for tire rotation or doing other car mods. The thing is your traditional car allowed a wider area along each corner to be jacked up. So it was to jack up that corner of the car, and put the jack stand right next to it before lowering the jack and using it on another corner. But with Teslas, the jack points are really narrow. It’s just one point. And with only one point of support, how the heck do you put the jack stand if that same point was already used for the jack?
Thanks to this challenge, many people have invented all kinds of ways to get all four wheels up.
- Using multiple jacks – can be expensive and also unsafe since jacks are not meant to support the weight for so long. At best, you get all four wheels up but it’s too risky to work under the car.
- Wheel ramps and lifting super high – yes, you can lift one corner extra high so that another corner is high enough to put a stand under. But this requires a lot of prep work, hard to understand by a first-timer, and also unsafe.
Do you really need all 4 wheels off the ground?
Yes, you can rotate your tires by lifting only one jack point, which lifts the entire side of the car and you rotate front and back tires. But it’s nice to have the car completely up so you can do everything at once and even leave it there for long periods of time.
Maybe you need to do other specific work. In my case, it was to paint the performance brakes (different color) and coat the wheel wells in sound-dampening paint. Maybe for you, will be to mess with the suspension or clean the under-tray. Whatever the case may be, being able to completely jack up the car on all 4 points is really convenient (and also much safe to work on).
No need for expensive tools and complicated jack methods!
I’ve seen way too much guides and gimmicky products out there. Some of them are really expensive and/or making the process so much more complicated than it has to be! This method is simple, you don’t even need jack stands!
See the crazy prices for yourself:
- JackPoint Jackstands – $320/pair. They look really nice and strong but ehhhh…overpriced for me.
- Rennstand Jack Stands – $125 per jack stand! Sure, may look fancy but do you really want to pay almost $600? Maybe if you don’t have much space and work on Teslas a lot, it could be worth it.
What you need:
- Hydraulic floor jack – a 2-ton or 3-ton jack would be fine. Can buy used on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or borrow from a friend to save money.
- Tesla jack pucks – now on Amazon for so cheap. ($10 version or fancy $30 ones) I don’t recommend wasting an hour of your time making them yourself to save $6. Their prices have dropped drastically now.
- Wood beams (one of each) 2×6″, 2×4″, 4×4″ – cut down as shown in the video. Technically, you could probably get by with just a single 2×6″ beam and chop into many pieces. Buy from a lumber yard and they should be able to cut down to your desired size.
Instructions:
Watch the video as it gives you a very easy understand of how you need to prepare the wood. If you have a drill, you can drill the wood together. Or you can just be like me and use wood glue or even nothing at all and just manually lay pieces as you go. Hahahah, so lazy, I know!
- Put car on emergency brake. (Hold the “P” until it goes on.)
- Put some wood in front of front tires and behind back tires so car doesn’t roll while you lift it.
- Jack up front of car (any side). Then jack up the back of the same side.
- Then lift front of the other side, and finally back of the final side.
Brilliant!