Halfords website is utter rubbish

[mistertoad]

Mattcortes, did you say hottie or tottie or are they the same?

The P.C. article says that these trolley jacks reviewed were small enough to go in the boot but then says don't forget the axle stands, with a wooden block to spread the load and wheel chocks the boot is getting quite full now apart from carrying all that deadweight around.

Better to get Green Flag to take it home for you and work on it there.

The ground clearance can be smaller still if you have a flat tyre, my BMW Sport suspension is only a few inches clear, but with a flat I reckon it touches the ground so you would still need a pillar jack unless your classic has rusted through points there.

I remember having a somewhat delapidated Morris Minor and my beefy brother-in -law thought he would get it off the jack quickly by lifting the wing, well, you can guess, it came off in his hand leaving car still on jack!

[TerryG]

Is 3 years a good life expectancy for a halfords jack? after trying to use it on the mog earlier mine no longer goes up
in the bin and off to machine mart for a new one.

[mistertoad]

What went wrong? Lost oil? airlock or did welds fail, would be useful to know why it "no longer goes up", does it come down?!!

Maybe you stored it vertically.

I can see trouble with modern jacks, plastic wheels, ball bearings thin metal.
My 30yr old trolley jack has steel wheels running on plain shafts with circlips or split pin/washers, no need for bearings, it's not going at speed! just needs to be plain and tough, uncomplicated needs a squirt of oil every so often.

[TerryG]

No idea, it looks like it has been leeking fluid from around the screw that lets it go down.
If i open that screw i can pull it up but as soon as there is any pressure on it, it goes back down. It is now in the wheely bin waiting for the bin men to take it to it's new "storage space" tomorrow morning.
The last time i used it was about a month ago and it was fine. Nothing lasts forever. My Clarke quick lift one is briliant if only it would go down low enough to go under my ford / the front of the mog.
I would go to halfrauds and get another one as they are cheaper than machine mart but the nearest halfrauds is 10 miles away, machine mart is about 2.

[mistertoad]

wELL THAT SAYS IT ALL, WHAT DOES IT COST YOU IN PETROL FOR A 20 MILE ROUND TRIP, MAKES hALFORDS A BIT MORE EXPENSIVE IF YOU CALCULATE THATE IN.

(sorry about big letters, I have new keyboard which is brilliant except it doesn't have a capslock light)

My friend Tony will travel about 20miles round trip to get petrol 2p litre cheaper which taking the total running costs make it more expensive.

I, foolishly nipped down the shops for newspaper yesterday and computer registered 7 (seven) mpg.

What does your Moggie do, I bet on average you get about 25, which compared to fuel injected cars is terrible for a little car.

Looking back on cost of living index for 1965, petrol then was just as expensive as now, taking into account average wages.

I hope you find your new jack an uplifting experience and that the binmen don't leave the old one behind cos they are not supposed to go in the bin!.

[Amy]

Halfords is ok as long as you're not expecting top-notch stuff. We tend to use them for anything that our local motor factor doesn't have (which admittedly isn't much). Batteries are pretty good, and some of their tools are ok if you buy their more expensive ones (I was told by the chap in our motor factors that their better ranges are made by Teng, don't know whether that's true). That said, I've also broken a lot of their spanners in the past... but that was when I was an impecunious student and thought that spending tuppence ha'penny on a spanner was good economics

We have a jack of theirs which is also pretty good, must've had it well over 10 years now.

Oh, and I can honestly say I don't think I've ever seen a 'hottie' in a motor factors. None of the blokes that work in them ever qualify as eye candy...

[JPB]

I had a split new trolley jack from Halfords in 1989, it was supplied with a kit of spare seals which, as luck would have it, weren't required until 2001 when it's habit of descending gradually and for no apparent reason was dealt with by removing the secondary seal, fitting the one from the kit and bleeding the jack through with fresh fluid.
I'm guessing that they aren't supplying service parts with their jacks nowadays?

Steel should be fine as long as you put it in your blue recycling bin but if that went in the black rubbish bin stand by for a huge bill from your local council if your bins have cameras as the ones here do. Matey down the village put a gallon can filled with used engine oil into his black bin and was given the "opportunity" to pay it up immediately at £200 or be taken to court and risk being fined even more,made the local radio news too.

[TerryG]

I don't think they would complain too much about a trolley jack. They haven't complained about the 2 greenhouses worth of glass in the black bin, the 2 greenhouses worth of ally in the recycling bin, the MOUNTAIN of roof tiles and other building rubble i have binned so far this year so i'm probably safe. I do take my oil to the local recycling ctr. I put the filters inside a couple of bags and put them in the bin as the recycling place said they don't take them.
On a run the Mog gets 30mpg which is a bit below my 2.0 Focus (but as the mog has been off the road for 3 years i can't remember exactly) My daily driver is a 4.6 Range Rover that gets 14mpg.

I have LOADS of halfords tools, their ratchet spanners are briliant. I bought some a few months ago and they make some jobs so much more doable. Other than this jack the only halfords tool i have had fail is the head of my 3ft bar but it did take a 12ft bit of scaffolding and me standing on the end of it to make it fail! (I gave up and bought a nut splitter in the end). I bought one of their short bars and used the end from that to replace the one on my longer bar. 10 years later i still have it (not much to go wrong with one!) If it wasn't for the distance (i don't really care about the fuel cost but the time is a killer!) i would have no problem buying a new jack from them but on a Sunday afternoon i couldn't be bothered with the long drive and traffic.
Their rotor arms are better quality than the "lucas" ones too!

[tractorman]

My Halford's jack must be about 25yo, but needs topping up on a regular basis and I don't thing the seals in the kit are for where it leaks! I have a nice Sealey jack now as the Halford's one had to be on several blocks before I could lift the tractors! The Halford's one was leaking before I bought the tractors, so it wasn't a weight issue that caused the leaks!

I'm a bit of a recycling freak though - I have a friendly scrapman who will take all my metal from me and gives excellent advice on tractors (and a few bob now and then!). Our rubbish bin (a small wheelie bin) only goes out every other week (or even three weekly at times) as I take as much as I can to the recycling bins when I go shopping. As for putting waste oil in the rubbish bin - that is certainly worth a £200 fine - it could contaminate the whole load in the wagon - and the council wouldn't be able to tip it with the normal stuff. I've taken about five gallons to the recycling place at times - it gets a raised eyebrow, but the tractor gearboxes take seven gallons and would probably be classed as trade waste (coming from what is normally an agricultural machine). However, I havn't been challenged about it.

[richardtaylor]

Rare event today -actually bought something from Halfords - some white grease but did look at Wiper Blades for my modern Galaxy - £26.99 the pair.

Yep, £26.99 - Genuine Ford ones are £9.99 each so suffice to say I didn't buy the Halfords ones. As I paid the spotty yuff did ask me if I had everything I was looking for, I did explain about the wiper baldes but he just glassed over showing absolutely no interest in what I had to say.