• @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    Use jack stands for your car. If your body will be under the car for even a second, there should be jack stands. There were five different people at my high school who were in a wheel chair because they thought the jack was enough.

    I don’t care if your jack costs $100,000 made of pure titanium; do not trust it.

    • netburnr
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      11 months ago

      Similar to this, once you have a vehicle on jack stands, shake it lightly to make sure it doesn’t fall easily. Better to find out now by shaking the car before being under it.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        True. It’s okay if your car falls a few inches. At worst you’ll have a blown shock.

    • @[email protected]
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      1911 months ago

      Related pro tip, if you’re changing a flat tire and don’t have any jack stands, place the spare/damaged wheel under the car while you’re working on it. Better to have the car fall on the wheel then potentially your leg

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        Why would you be under a vehicle to change a flat? You just sitting at the wheel legs under the car?

        • @[email protected]
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          411 months ago

          If no one told you not to, you wouldn’t know not to.
          “My knees hurt from kneeling fussing with the nuts, but I still need to be close…”

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        I do this anytime I take a wheel off, even with jack stands. Doesn’t hurt anything and I’ll take anything extra between the chassis and my head I can get.

    • @marmotworks
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      1111 months ago

      Taking a wheel off of a car, and you don’t have jack stands? You have jack stands and are taking a wheel off as part of your work? Does it involve being under the car? Throw that wheel on the ground under the frame rail / pinch weld. If something horrible happens and the jack kicks, dropping the car on you, it may save your life, and you have to put that wheel somewhere anyway

    • squiblet
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      1011 months ago

      There was a waiter at my second job who was crushed by a car that fell off a Jack. Same, he was in a wheelchair. But then he (probably partially from continuing to do meth) had a heart attack and died 6 months later.

        • squiblet
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          311 months ago

          We weren’t either. I guess being in a wheelchair is hard on your heart already. He was only 45 too, and a really chill and nice dude.

    • Subverb
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      1011 months ago

      I just posted elsewhere in the thread, neighbor had his car roll off his jack stands because he was, let’s face it, dumb enough to be working on a sloped driveway. Crushed his head and killed him. His parents found him.

      If you’re only using two jack stands get chocks too, not just a log from the wood pile.

      People seem to think nothing bad will happen to them because it never has before. This is wrong.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        People are way too comfortable with getting underneath unsecured loads, especially cars. I feel bad for the kid, but damn, don’t get under a car on a slope.

        I need to buy some chocks now that you mention it. Parking brakes aren’t enough

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          People are way too comfortable with a lot of dangerous situations. There were two sanitation engineers in my city just a week ago who died trying to replace a pump in a subsurface pumping station (read: one of those big manholes that had a pump inside it). One dude went down to secure a rope around the pump, didn’t come back up, his buddy went in to save him, also didn’t come out. This is an almost identical event to one that happened 6 years ago in the same city, for the same sanitation department.

    • Clay_pidgin
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      411 months ago

      I lost a coworker when his beloved 70s Camaro fell on him while he was alone at home. His partner had to come home and find him, and he was never quite the same. I tell everyone to use jack stands or a block or a wheel.