I needed to rotate my tires this past weekend and just figured out how interesting having a car built with unibody construction is.

When rotating your tires, where do you jack up your car?

There are four little flat spots on the underbody "frame", two behind the front wheels and two in front of the rear wheels, that I figure are for the big hydraulic garage jacks to use when raising the whole car - and these seem like a competent place to put jackstands as well (any input here?).

But, what I want to do is to find a location along the side of the car (without torquing the body too much in the process) where I can jack the whole side up from one spot and not bend the bejeepers out of that little flange they tell you to use. Is there such a spot where the "frame" of the car won't get too distorted?

I finally just popped the front end onto a jack stand and used my shop jack on the rear and rotated the tires but there has *got* to be a better way to do this yourself.

Thanks.

 

nice subject

 

A general guideline for jack points...
Look under either side of the vehicle and you will see a boxed section of the floorpan, running fore-and-aft. This amounts to a "frame" on a frameless vehicle. These boxed sections are several inches inboard of the flange you mentioned. You may position the saddle of your floor jack under the leading end of this "frame" (just behind the front wheel) or under the trailing end (just ahead of the rear wheel). These are the spots which are used when a shop technician uses a four-point lift to raise your car. You may use these same points for jackstands.

The Maxima factory service manual identifies two "garage jack points":

1) The leading end of the fore-and-aft stamped steel brace which is under the engine/transaxle in the center of the vehicle. Jacking at this point raises the entire front of the vehicle.

2) The center point of the rear axle. Jacking at this point raises the entire rear of the vehicle.

For tire rotation I like to raise the front (using garage jack point 1), put jackstands under the box-section "frame rails", raise the rear (using garage jack point 2) and just leave the jack in place. This leaves all four wheels off the ground.

If you don't have an air impact wrench remember to loosen all the lug nuts one turn before jacking the car.

If you do have an air impact wrench remember to tighten the lug nuts by hand, preferably with a torque wrench.


I replaced the original cup-like steel saddle on my floor jack with a rubber-faced flat plate (Harbor Freight #36004, $10 +s/h, or equivalent.) This is kinder to the car, marks it up less. Another approach would be to fashion a rubber insert for your cup-like saddle. Collect one of those truck tire treads which litter the highway roadside. Look for a thick one. Cut out a piece which will fit inside the saddle. Let it "float" or secure it with a big gob of adhesive, as you wish.

 

You can position the floor jack saddle under the "frame rail" about 18 inches rearward of the leading end. This will lift the entire side of the vehicle. However, I don't recommend it because it does put a lot of weight on one part of the unibody "frame". You may buy an adapter for your floor jack which supports the vehicle in two places. See, for instance, Northern #145883.

http://www.northerntool.com/cgi-bin/...6&prmenbr=6970

I don't have one of these yet, but it is on my Wish List.

 

Exactly the info I was looking for (which means, of course, it's high time to go get the shop manual, eh?)

Cheers.

 

The factory service manual contains a wealth of detail but is expensive. The aftermarket repair manuals (Haynes and Chilton) are a good choice for most home mechanics.

The jacking points are well covered (text, photos, and a diagram) in Chilton on pages 1-48,49. Haynes is the better of the two books in many respects, but Chilton has better information on this topic.

For a detailed comparison of manuals, go to http://vbxmaxima.8m.com/manualcompare.html