So Nissan has made it difficult for me to lift my car...

zeoniks

zeoniks

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
Messages
629
Location
Brooklyn, New York
Car(s)
2007 Nissan Murano
So I plan on changing my car oil some time this week and purchased a floor jack and some jack stands, however this is one niggling obstacle in my way.

There is this flange (a lip, whatever you want to call it) that requires a jack stand adapter; if you don't have one and try to use a set a jack stands, the weight of the car will crush the lip and possibly my face.

Unfortunately, after visiting a few Nissan/Infiniti forums, the best solutions were 1) use a hockey puck or 2) making one yourself because apparently none of those adapters ever went into production (not by Nissan or its suppliers, at least)

Here are some pictures to let you see what I'm seeing (I apologize for the focus. I was just taking quick shots):


http://img390.imageshack.**/img390/5214/img7930mediummc0.jpg
By zeoniks

http://img142.imageshack.**/img142/3669/img7934mediumik4.jpg
By zeoniks

http://img149.imageshack.**/img149/2574/img7935mediumlw1.jpg
By zeoniks

I don't know if you can judge how thick the frame rail is, but I think I can put the jack stand on the inside of the lip, directly on the rail.

As far as I know, I don't think the lip adds to the integrity of rail, but I also can't help but feel that the lip is there for a reason. Can anyone here give me some input?
 
Can't you just buy a pair of those mini ramp thingies? Should give you enough clearance for an oil change.
 
I could buy those ramps, but you can't rotate tires with those things :) Besides, I just spent about $150 for four stands and a jack, and those ramps are ridiculously expensive.
 
Oh, your car has no jack itself at all?

Those ramps don't seem too expensive, it's just hunks of metal. ;)
 
Shawn said:
Oh, your car has no jack itself at all?

Those ramps don't seem too expensive, it's just hunks of metal. ;)
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I can jack it up, but I can't set my jack stands under the frame rail because of the lip.

As the for the ramps, I'm probably not going to buy them because I could easily just get a few pieces of stacked wood and drive on top of them. Sometime in the future, I'm probably going to change a tire or two, and a ramp won't work so I might as well find a way to get my stands to work right now and not worry about them later.
 
Hmm, maybe someone has some technical info. I just thought those ramps seemed efficient for some reason.

But I wouldn't drive onto anything stacked... :?
 
Shawn said:
Hmm, maybe someone has some technical info. I just thought those ramps seemed efficient for some reason.

But I wouldn't drive onto anything stacked... :?
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There is also another issue with the ramps too. The car won't be level and there's a good chance the oil won't drain properly.
 
Just stick a hunk of wood on the jack, make sure it's secure first. Or you can take your jack stands back and buy some fancy ones with rubber bumper thingies on top. Lots of cars have that lip like that, and the notches just identify the jacking point, so even soccer moms know where to jack the car when they get a flat.
 
Is this one of those "let's make it stupidly hard to do so people will go to the garage and ask us to do it, and we can charge them through the butthole" things like the Renault headlamps?

because that's pretty fail of Nissan...
they should include a hockeypuck in the spare tyre then :lol:
 
NooDle said:
because that's pretty fail of Nissan...
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Most every unibody car has that lip. You can jack it up on the lip without it bending, just be careful. If you must just use a 2x4 or some rags to protect it.
 
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Thanks Spectre.

I appreciate the help, but I think I'm going to take it up another notch and mill out some adapters from some stock.
I managed to make temporary adapters out of some wood and get my oil changed, but it's not going to support the weight of a 2-ton car.
 
Been using blocks of wood for 2 years now. On both the jacks and the jack stands.

Not the safest solution, but I make sure to have redundancy in my lift equipment, has been fine thus far.

Most common cars nowaday has this frame frame "lip", blocks of wood work just fine, even when lifting the front of my neighbor's 05 hemi charger
 
As a tall, "off road" vehicle, I'd have thought you could do the oil without jacking it at all.

I had no trouble getting under a Holden Jackaroo (Isuzu Trooper) I once had, to change the oil and it only had average ground clearance for a 4WD.
 
Still calling it your car eh? After all you've done to it I'm surprised your parents let you within 20 feet of it. So when you damage something this time around, who's fault is it going to be now?
 
Punisher Bass said:
Still calling it your car eh? After all you've done to it I'm surprised your parents let you within 20 feet of it. So when you damage something this time around, who's fault is it going to be now?
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LOL! I just back and all off his threads about his car and what you said about it! :lol:
 
Flyingphil said:
As a tall, "off road" vehicle, I'd have thought you could do the oil without jacking it at all.

I had no trouble getting under a Holden Jackaroo (Isuzu Trooper) I once had, to change the oil and it only had average ground clearance for a 4WD.
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Yeah I tried. The Murano's clearance isn't as high as one would think. I need to get it off the ground another inch or two in order to get under it.
 
D-Fence said:
Wood is the way to go :)



https://pic.armedcats.net/d/d-/d-fence/2009/01/06/DSC01215.JPG


The lip sinks into the wood as you can see on the block :D

(and yes, that is a drumbrake on my rear axle, and yes, I use some old underpants for cleaning stuff :p)
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That's ridiculous :lol:.

I mean if you're just working on the wheel assembly I guess that wouldn't be too much a of a problem. If the wood splits, at least you won't be under the car.

I am really paranoid; I stacked a couple of cinder blocks under the center-front jack point.
 
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