Michael

Everytime I have to use a floor jack to lift up the car up, I am damaging the area and there are many warped under the car near the bottom areas near front door.

There is not a good spot to jack the car up on this car. The service manual specifies four sides, front and back. Front is the suspension crossmember and rear is where the differential carrier is. Front and back has good support but the spots near doors are really not a good place to put a jack. I have many areas that are damaged already.

Where do you place your floor jack to lift the vehicle? Or what is the best method that you are using?

dicer

There is no reason to damage any part of the car jacking with a floor jack. First you may need ramps if you have the plastic belly pan under the engine. I always have a rubber pad on the jack that is made for it, napa has them. Also in some cases a piece of 2x4 cut to fit. I jack the front using the pads where the lower control arm brace fits on front frame. I would not jack on the Aluminum cross member that I have seen others do in some of the how to pictures. Aluminum is easy to damage. I think that is a bad deal for a luxury car, the cheezy jack points and jack. There should have been specific hardened points with a non slip arrangement to jack at. All unibody cars are lacking in that department, especially when simply jacking the car to change a flat can cause paint to be removed in the process. I don't remember the rear jack points that I use, I would not use the differential. I think I jack at the control arm as close to the wheel as possible and use wood blocks on the rear sub frame its been awhile since doing that. If blocking I try to use a board to spread the load and not concentrate it in a small area. There are points that service outfits use their car lifts on, use them. My drive way is slopped and makes jacking a fun deal, flat would be nice.

RugbyDad

The spaces underneath the door jambs are for the OEM scissor jack that comes with the vehicle. Has little notches that the scissor jacks fits over. Using the scissor jack in those spots damages nothing. By extension using jack stands in those spots damages nothing. The rear differential is the best rear spot to jack the car up. In the front, I would use a rubber damper that they sell everywhere like dicer said and jack anywhere I felt was beholden to the frame. Mostly I just drive the front onto ramps or use the scissor jack.

If I had a floor jack and felt that there was nowhere to jack up the car in the front, I would use the rubber damper, place the oem scissor jack (placed as flat as it will go) on top of it with it spaced to connect to the notches under the door jamb and lift there. Place a jack stand and move to the other side.

billydpowe

iTrader: (1)

looks like you have had some great advice....coast to coast.... if you follow it you will be ok.... otherwise????

cheers !!

LiCelsior

iTrader: (32)

front - front subframe, theres a small metal plate that you can jack it up from.
rear - rear diff

dicer

I just looked. The reason I say NOT the differential is because the cover is Aluminum, if damaged it could leak.
I would jack at the control arm close to wheel. Or at the sub frame jack point the dealer would use with a car lift.

The car lift point for front would be some where behind the front door hinge line on the front sub frame.
The rear is some distance in front of the rear wheels on rear sub frame.

Michael

Thanks for the information. If I would have known that Napa sells the rubber piece, I would have bought one. I have made a 2x4 with a cut slot in the center. The wood piece brakes into pieces and causes more damages to the aluminum cross member.

Do I just go to Napa and ask for a rubber pad for floor jack? I would think the weight of the car in front would just cut the rubber into pieces, but I will definitely try the pad as I've been having trouble with 2x4 cutout pieces.

YoshiMan

Jacking it up on the front cross member or the differential is not going to damage anything. Those are the places specified by the service manual, and therefore, the places designed by Toyota to handle the said jacking. Just be careful not to squash anything, and you will be good to go.

dicer

Since I finally saw a shop manual today. Yes Yoshiman your correct. I would still pad it real good when jacking at those points.

randal

Yes, as dicer mentioned, I always use a small piece of soft pine 2x4 on the jack cup when lifting at any point on the car.

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

I squished those jack points under the doors a long time ago before I realized I was doing it wrong. Now I have one of those Harbor Freight aluminum floor jacks so I use the front cross member, diff or the frame the runs under the front driver and passenger seats. I keep some blocks of wood in my trunk for jacking.

dicer

Those scissor jack points at the rocker panel pinch weld is one of the bad designs of these cars. If the jacks had a nylon or delron plastic insert that padded and protected the paint on the pinch weld along with the material being much thicker for say a total of say 7 mm thick at just those points then yeah maybe ok then. They could have put a little more thought into the jacking up deal instead of the normal stuff all the other auto makers do.
Just my opinion.