Hey scotty, I bought a Pittsburgh 1.5 ton floor jack from Harbor Freight around 5 months ago. I bought it to learn how to do my own maintenance, this is my first time using a floor jack. After putting it together, pumping it didn't make the arm raise so I ended up filling it with fluid and bleeding the air out. That made it work but now when I put the weight of the car on the jack, hydraulic fluid starts to come out from the little cylinder under the raising arm. Is this normal? Did I over fill it or is the thing defective? I can't return it now cause I waited so long to use it. Thanks
I have one of those jacks and your experience is definitely not normal. Mine worked great right out of the box and continues to do so after a couple of years. I've never had to add jack oil. You're definitely looking at a defect. As you note though, you are beyond the HF standard 90-day warranty so you cannot bring it back. If it's just a defective seal you may be able to replace it.
Also bear in mind the limited capacity of the jack. I only use mine to jack up one corner of a vehicle at a time, not the entire front or back. (I have heavier-duty jacks for that kind of thing.)
Just one more example of why I never buy anything from Harbor Freight that has any moving parts.
Their jacks are actually pretty good. I've seen Scotty using them in his videos. I've been using HF jacks for years and had no problems. That little 1.5 ton aluminum job is great for ease of carrying around if you just need to get something under a control arm or maybe need to support an engine or transmission. He just got a bad one and unfortunately didn't test it until the warranty was over.