Top Gear-Safety

Not really. It was a proper trolley jack, not the shit you get at Halfords. My mate has a proper f*ck off one that'll lift a car 6ft off the floor. There's no way in hell that'll ever fall over.

But the hydraulics could fail. That's the main reason stands are always recommended with trolley jacks.

Seals fail ?

Axle stands are a MUST!

watching Top Gear from last Sunday, in the piece at Rockingham when

Used BFO jacks in the garage I worked in. A VERY shiny cadillac came in for some spangly rims. There were no jacking points on this thing and it was impossible to lift it on the hoist so eventually we got the thing jacked up, using the special jack for special cars that had a nice soft cushiony surface rather than the usual block of wood. The owner was one of those anal fastidious types and even the bottom of the car was polished, so the nice soft cushiony jack eventually slipped and the Caddie came crashing down. The massive rim the boss was doing a fitment check with supported the car on its inner wing but there was a nasty puddle of oil quickly gathering under the car. Shit. The jack had gone through the sump!

No it hadn't... luckily it had only twatted the oil filter. Even more amazingly we had a matching one in stock. The owner was standing by throughout all this and stayed very calm! He even bought the rims and very nice they looked too.

That was my point, I remember being at Snetterton (IIRC) one day when for some reason a bloke with a MG lifted it with a trolley jack and put the axle stands under while holding the top of the axle stand.

The obvious happened, luckily there were lots of people around, but i doubt he ever lived it down.

james

I've seen that sort of thing occur at Rockingham many times ;)

Though did you see the size of the jack, it'll probably be ok as long as noone leans on the car :P

If the 75 is anything like my Sportswagon was, then he was risking it. The jack went srtight through the rust.