Hello Everyone. A close relative of mine just bought a pair of plastic/resin car ramps from Walmart for about $40 and they are rated at about 6,000 Lb.'s. I'm a person who has always used a good old jack and jack stands, but I know that these ramps are generally considered to be more practical and potentially even safer than Jack stands. Would love to know your thoughts on these or any positive or negative experiences. Thank you.
Used one for my 2 tone and 3 tone car .. never had a problem..
Rhino Ramps are awesome.They are plenty sturdy enough to work underneath. Just be careful not to drive off the front of them. My girlfriend did over the summer, and it wasn't fun figuring out how to jack up a Mustang with broken ramp pieces in the way of the lift points.
I don't like plastic ramps myself, but I know guys that use them with no issues. As long as you mind the weight rating and set your parking brake, it should be ok. I'd probably chock the rear wheels too just to be extra cautious.
I use 6000 lb. Rhino Ramps for an F-150 pick up with no problem at all. They're much quicker and easier than using a jack, but I still place jack stands and use a wheel chock. Redundant protection is your friend.
I love my ramps! {black}:inlove:
By the way, I use them for my 6,000 lb full size van, which is well within the 16,000 lb rating of the ramps.
I have used them and haven't had any issues.
General consideration: plastic is a material which cannot withstand heavy loads for a prolonged time. So plastic ramps, if properly made, may be good for short repairs, but better not leave your car standing on them for long.
You are talking about thermoplastics. Thermosetting polymers like polyester resin are very rigid and used to build boats. Aircraft are employing structural plastics more and more. There are so many different types of plastics and composites, with varying degrees of strength and other properties. Have a look at PEEK.
my local warehouse has large stacks of milk jugs in plastic crates.
Plastic pallets are used extensively for handling heavy goods and long term storage.
The Boeing 787s are made almost entirely of carbon fiber reinforced plastic, as well. The plastic takes compression stress and the carbon fiber takes tensile stress in that setup. Plastic is a great building material, providing it's been designed correctly. Plastic car ramps are made of some kind of fiber reinforced plastic, probably glass. They won't squish like a 2-liter will. They actually snap more like a piece of plywood than deform and fail like a soda bottle when stepped on.
I would not bet my car on that plastic car ramps bought at Walmart for about $40 are made of all those expensive plastic types described above.
Neither would I confuse normal plastic with all those expensive high-tech fiber reinforced parts used in aerospace industry.
The general negative thing about plastic (as opposed to, say, metal - and this negative aspect btw applies (even) to the most expensive carbon-fiber reinforced composites as well) is not that plastic breaks - everything breaks sooner or later - but that it breaks suddenly and unpredictably. When you are using metal, you have ways to calculate how long (e.g. how many load cycles) it is guaranteed to last. In addition to that, before a "tired" metal part actually breaks it would in most cases first gradually deform, crack etc. - in other words it would in most cases give you prior notice and some time to take preemptive action. When using plastic, you can neither predict its longevity with a level of precision which would make practical sense, nor can you be sure that it wont break suddenly. It might give you prior notice and time for preemptive action, OR it might not: it is pretty much a gamble. That is why, although it is sometimes financially very tempting to replace metal parts with lightweight and cheap plastic equivalents, the more safety-critical a part is, the higher the risks involved in such a replacement (yes, I also mean the Boeing). Remember Scotty complaining about car manufacturers replacing all sorts of important metal parts with plastics, and his stories of how detrimental such replacements mostly are for car reliability (rhetorical question)?
Same thing with plastic ramps. The longer your car has been left standing on those, the higher the risk that it will fall onto your head when you will be lying underneath doing some repairs - especially with age. If you are only using the plastic ramps short-term, during the actual repair work, this risk is indeed negligible. But if you leave your car standing on those ramps for a long time (like days or even weeks) - this is not what these ramps are designed for, also from their materials standpoint.
Fibre reinforced plastic is not "high-tech" and has been around for a long time. It is very common in many consumer items. I even showed you images of paletts bearing a lot of weigh. The warning statement for the ramps makes no mention about leaving a vehicle on top of them for weeks. I think you are just inventing problems where they don't exist (especially if you've never actually used them)
"Fibre reinforced plastic is not "high-tech" and has been around for a long time. It is very common in many consumer items."
Agreed. It is almost as good as alu, IF new and not stressed mechanically for prolonged periods of time.
"I even showed you images of paletts bearing a lot of weigh."
Yes. But (unlike car ramps) those paletts are not safety-critical items. In many cases paletts are being only used once - for one-way delivery. Even if used multiple times, paletts are more or less consumables - noone in the cargo and logistics business really expects them to last long, and their breakage is smth common. Just like various foldable plastic boxes for the car trunk - no matter how expensive they were, all I bought broke in a few years. And when cargo paletts break, no car falls onto your head: standing under lifted paletts is prohibited.
"The warning statement for the ramps makes no mention about leaving a vehicle on top of them for weeks."
Well, when you buy plastic car parts, the box does not contain any warnings that those would last much less than their metal equivalents either. Would be a bad ad.
"I think you are just inventing problems where they don't exist (especially if you've never actually used them)"
Well, you are right when you say that I never used plastic car ramps. I made mine of solid wood, because I had had a number of bad experiences with plastic parts failures, and those practical experiences (and not at all a tendency to invent unexisting problems) brought me to a conclusion that one should avoid plastic parts in safety-critical applications, where those parts are subject to long-term tensions, cause plastic parts cannot stand those tensions for a long time.
Let me give you an example:
My old Audi has almost the same thermostat cover design than the previous Audi model had. It is some sort of a dome with a nipple on its side. The main difference is that in the previous model this part was made of Alu, while in my car they changed the material to a glass fiber reinforced plastic.
Theoretically, this plastic should be about as good as alu for this purpose - this part is not subject to any significant mechanical stresses, and should last for ages. But in real life, while (acc to older audi owners) the old alu part truly lasts forever, this newer plastic part became some sort of a consumable item on my car and on the cars of other similar Audi owners I know - I am now on my 4th plastic thermostat cover, I guess. Problem is, that the tension of the steel hose clamp, which (the tension) is just enough to prevent the nipple-to-hose connection from leaking, is also enough for the plastic nipple to break off in a few years. The fiber-reinforced plastic simply cannot survive this stress, and regularly cracks with time along the circle line under the hose clamp. Although I do my very best to not overtighten the hose clamp, and although the nipple walls are not thin at all. And the bad thing is, that this part sometimes breaks suddenly - without any small "warning" leaks - just pffff - and your engine spills all the coolant out. The first time it happened, it was scary. So, as soon as the now-installed part will break (and I know it will), I will try finding an older Alu version on the scrapyard somewhere and will modify it to fit (you cannot order the Alu version any more, unfortunately).
The physics behind this sudden breakage process (as I understood explanations from the Internet) is that those reinforcement glass fibers are so tiny that some of them tend to break with every stress. And as soon as a certain "breakage level" has been reached, the further breakage snowballs in a non-linear fashion - the further reinforcing fibers breakage curve becomes so steep, that a part goes from first symptoms to full breakage sooner, than a person would realistically be able to notice those symptoms under normal usage conditions. With metal parts, you do not have this problem - metal is predictable, and lasts much longer under stress.
Wood dries out, rots, splits, slips when wet, and it's too heavy.
I have a set of steel ramps that work fine on most of my vehicles but are too steep for those that have air dams that sit low in the front. I've been thinking of looking for some plastic ramps that have a shallower angle. (Currently I use a low-profile jack and jack stands.) I've looked at the Rhino ramps but they may be too steep, and most of the low profile ramps I've found are expensive and look like they only raise the vehicle up a few inches.
"Cons... Ramp angle isn't suitable for low profile vehicles"
https://www.thedrive.com/reviews/29044/rhinogear-rhinoramps
I wouldn't even try to put my Mustang with an air dam on the Rhino Ramps. If it could make it up, there wouldn't be an eighth of an inch to spare. Too scary. And that's a spot on analysis about the shallower angle ramps.
I've read of people making custom ramps out of lumber. Might be something to try.
https://www.itsoverflowing.com/diy-car-ramps/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Aoiz5rhqE0
They should be high enough do slide catch pan under there and give you drain plug access.
And lets say you're doing more serious work like brakes or suspension... Even if they're not high enough, they get you part way there (on both sides) in just a matter of seconds which is a huge time saver.
At least some of the low profile ramps I've seen look like they wouldn't even be high enough for oil changes. For brake or suspension work the wheels need to come off anyway.
{pear}:surprised:
You might end up spending the same amount of money for the lumber to make D-I-Why ramps. Plus a whole lot more of your time. They will be much heavier, and will rot out eventually.
Yes the wheels come off, but sometimes you max out the range on a jack. Then you have to secure the vehicle, and reset your jack. The ramps give you a quick and easy head start.
My Rhino ramps seem to do very well, I mostly use them for smaller vehicles though.
I wouldn't trust them. We get too much garbage in the UK from China. Even when you go with supposedly well made stuff from brand names you still get garbage. I don't really care how strong the plastic is, I don't understand why it's hollow. I'd be prepared to pay for a solid piece of plastic.
Even saw some jack stands recently on Amazon that were supposedly made in Germany and passed all their regulations. Then there's all these pictures in the review section where people were saying they were falling apart, and showing you where the bubble welds had come apart.
If they were solid, you would need two guys to carry one over to the car. The "Rhino" brand ones are not very good , despite their popularity. There are better quality ones which are ribbed all the way though.
People in the reviews are often firing on two brain cells.
The ramps hold up just fine if you don't abuse them. Online reviews are pretty solid.
Are you sure it's as many as two brain cells?