I've been looking at these things for a while now, and I guess it is fortunate that I delayed and actual purchase until I had read enough about them. I kind of just stumbled on this model 4520 while looking at another model that I thought would better suit me. But the more I compared them, the better the 4520 sounded to me. But let me back up a bit.
What the heck do I want with something like this anyway? What they are designed to do is to have four (4) of them, one for each tire/wheel. The idea is to put these under each wheel, jack them up to where the tires are off the ground, and that will allow you to easily (relatively speaking) then roll the car around on a flat surface in any direction. Now, I really don't foresee the need to do this in my own garage, but I had another problem that I thought these might solve for me.
Sad to say I am getting older. My back isn't what it used to be, and I've found that removing and re-installing wheels on the vehicles is becoming more of a physical chore than I would like it to be. Especially the re-installing part. Trying to hold the wheel off the ground while rotating the wheel to align with the wheel studs threatens to wreck my back at any instant just from the awkwardness of trying to hold the wheel up during the maneuver. So I thought that something that could assist me with this effort might be worth pursuing. So enter these GoJack thingies.
At first I was only going to order one of them, but recently there was some talk about putting larger wheels and tires on the C5s and I got to thinking that I have a C6Z and a C6 coupe that had some wheels I could certainly try out for fitment. But honestly jockeying around those wheels from one vehicle to another was pretty likely to get me throwing my back out of whack. Sooo, I decided to order two of them. That should make the wheel jockey maneuver much easier on me, I hope. One to hold the original wheel coming off of my C5Z, and the other one to do the jockeying of the donor wheel coming off of one of the other vehicles. So, we shall see how that works out.
Anyway, with all that in mind, the model 4520 just seems the better choice for what I wanted. The other models have larger wheels on them, and I was afraid there might be a clearance issue trying to fit the arms of the GoJack between the tires and the wheel well lower edges. Also the 4520 has two smaller rollers for each side instead of a single one per side like the other model (6313?) I was looking at. And the 4520 had a 5 degree offset to the lifting handle that I hoped would keep my foot further away from my wheels and tires while working it. The ONLY thing I thought might be a drawback was that the 4520 was being advertised as being able to handle tires up to 20 inches in diameter. Well, that was a LOT more than I actually needed, but I rationalized that this would allow me to actually keep the activator handle even further away from the wheel. So I figured I could live with those 20 inch wide rollers. Well, when I got the units in (and I found a VERY good price with free shipping!) I was surprised that the rollers didn't seem to be 20 inches wide as I had thought they would be. Actually they measured 14 inches wide, which really works out great for the wide rear tires of the C6Z and perfectly acceptable for the rear tires on the other cars. Matter of fact, had I specified the width of the rollers I wanted, 14 inches would have been my preference anyway. So this worked out pretty well. So all in all the only thing I can even think about to gripe about concerning these things (so far, anyway) is the color. :thumbsdown: Connie came into the garage while I was putting the wheels on them and commented on the nice pink tools I had just bought. Oh lordy.......... :ack2: I'm not going to hear the end of this anytime real soon....
Anyway, haven't had a chance to use them other than to just test the positioning to make sure they had the clearance I had hoped for. Hopefully the tires will be balanced enough to stay on these things without tipping over when being moved, but if not, I think I can deal with that as needed.
So here's some pics I took. The pics of the devices showing the tire width compared to them are first of the C5Z (blue) and then of the C6Z (gray).
Oh yeah! Notice the MADE IN AMERICA label.... :thumbsup:
What the heck do I want with something like this anyway? What they are designed to do is to have four (4) of them, one for each tire/wheel. The idea is to put these under each wheel, jack them up to where the tires are off the ground, and that will allow you to easily (relatively speaking) then roll the car around on a flat surface in any direction. Now, I really don't foresee the need to do this in my own garage, but I had another problem that I thought these might solve for me.
Sad to say I am getting older. My back isn't what it used to be, and I've found that removing and re-installing wheels on the vehicles is becoming more of a physical chore than I would like it to be. Especially the re-installing part. Trying to hold the wheel off the ground while rotating the wheel to align with the wheel studs threatens to wreck my back at any instant just from the awkwardness of trying to hold the wheel up during the maneuver. So I thought that something that could assist me with this effort might be worth pursuing. So enter these GoJack thingies.
At first I was only going to order one of them, but recently there was some talk about putting larger wheels and tires on the C5s and I got to thinking that I have a C6Z and a C6 coupe that had some wheels I could certainly try out for fitment. But honestly jockeying around those wheels from one vehicle to another was pretty likely to get me throwing my back out of whack. Sooo, I decided to order two of them. That should make the wheel jockey maneuver much easier on me, I hope. One to hold the original wheel coming off of my C5Z, and the other one to do the jockeying of the donor wheel coming off of one of the other vehicles. So, we shall see how that works out.
Anyway, with all that in mind, the model 4520 just seems the better choice for what I wanted. The other models have larger wheels on them, and I was afraid there might be a clearance issue trying to fit the arms of the GoJack between the tires and the wheel well lower edges. Also the 4520 has two smaller rollers for each side instead of a single one per side like the other model (6313?) I was looking at. And the 4520 had a 5 degree offset to the lifting handle that I hoped would keep my foot further away from my wheels and tires while working it. The ONLY thing I thought might be a drawback was that the 4520 was being advertised as being able to handle tires up to 20 inches in diameter. Well, that was a LOT more than I actually needed, but I rationalized that this would allow me to actually keep the activator handle even further away from the wheel. So I figured I could live with those 20 inch wide rollers. Well, when I got the units in (and I found a VERY good price with free shipping!) I was surprised that the rollers didn't seem to be 20 inches wide as I had thought they would be. Actually they measured 14 inches wide, which really works out great for the wide rear tires of the C6Z and perfectly acceptable for the rear tires on the other cars. Matter of fact, had I specified the width of the rollers I wanted, 14 inches would have been my preference anyway. So this worked out pretty well. So all in all the only thing I can even think about to gripe about concerning these things (so far, anyway) is the color. :thumbsdown: Connie came into the garage while I was putting the wheels on them and commented on the nice pink tools I had just bought. Oh lordy.......... :ack2: I'm not going to hear the end of this anytime real soon....
Anyway, haven't had a chance to use them other than to just test the positioning to make sure they had the clearance I had hoped for. Hopefully the tires will be balanced enough to stay on these things without tipping over when being moved, but if not, I think I can deal with that as needed.
So here's some pics I took. The pics of the devices showing the tire width compared to them are first of the C5Z (blue) and then of the C6Z (gray).
Oh yeah! Notice the MADE IN AMERICA label.... :thumbsup:
