Hi All,

New to this forum, so firstly..hello. I recently bought a MK7 Fiesta 1.25 zetec. Very happy with it but it seems to be developing a problem which I need to investigate by raising the car. Luckily I have a car lift in my garage which uses four large (about 6inch diameter) pads to raise the car. Question is, where should I locate them? is it safe to use the seam on the sill, as in the lip that extends downwards formed by the floorpan and sill being welded together? I believe that this is where the emergency jack is supposed to locate, but are these seams strong enough to support the weight of the car without folding over? The owners manual is very vague with it's description and diagram. It shows the approx location of the jacking points but do I use the seams or a flat area? Hope my question makes sense!

Hi All,

New to this forum, so firstly..hello. I recently bought a MK7 Fiesta 1.25 zetec. Very happy with it but it seems to be developing a problem which I need to investigate by raising the car. Luckily I have a car lift in my garage which uses four large (about 6inch diameter) pads to raise the car. Question is, where should I locate them? is it safe to use the seam on the sill, as in the lip that extends downwards formed by the floorpan and sill being welded together? I believe that this is where the emergency jack is supposed to locate, but are these seams strong enough to support the weight of the car without folding over? The owners manual is very vague with it's description and diagram. It shows the approx location of the jacking points but do I use the seams or a flat area? Hope my question makes sense!

IIRC the jacking points recommended in the manual are the same as those used for the emergency jack. I have used a trolley jack on mine at these points with no problems so I would stick with the advice in the manual.

Never, ever put the weight of the car on the sill seams - I'm sure that they will "fold" & the resulting distortion might even spread to the visible part of the sills.

The jack which comes with the car (if like me you specified a spare wheel) appears to "lift" on the seams, but actually the weight is taken by a "pad" on the jack which lifts under specially strengthened areas of the floorpan underneath the car adjacent to (close to the inside edge of) the sill seams at each jacking point. The "U" on the jack is there solely to locate it & hence ensure that the jack doesn't slide out when in use - as the "U" on the jack head clamps around, rather than lifts, the sill seams. As I said, the weight is actually taken by specially strengthened areas of floorpan, not the seams.

That's my advice, anyway!

the red ones are originally proposed by Ford, I sometimes use also blue ones, but really as short term solution...

Thanks for your replies. Andy confirms my fears that the sill flange is not really strong enough, but the diagram on the right shows the sort of lifting gear that I'm using and the red circles look like they are directly over the flange/ seam of the sill?

I remember jacking my MK2 Punto on the sill lips/jacking points and it crumbled and went through the floor :D.

I have a trolley jack for when I need to jack cars and I'll always stick to somewhere underneath the vehicle, and I place the axle stands in a similar place, in the diagram posted above me the blue points is where I use.

Sometimes you'll look at other cars and see the sill lips all bent and rough, that's probably because someone has put a trolley jack underneath and jacked the car in that position.

Dan

Always put a piece of wood between the flanges and the trolley jack.

This has come in very handy for trolly jack possitions :)