which costco jack

Just because of my own personal bias, I'd most likely go after the higher lift, steel unit. It seems that no matter what the project, I always end up wanting "just a little bit more" jack than what I have on hand.

I'm also partial to having more weight capacity than what's actually needed, after witnessing someone stumble over the cord of the trouble-light he was playing out, and catch himself against a truck that was on a "guess-it-wasn't-quite-enough" floor jack - the jack literally folded, the truck came down, and the guy ended up having to buy a new transmission because when the truck fell onto the top of the tranny, the jack-stand holding the tranny up punched through the pan and valve body, and into the gearbox proper, tearing up a whole bunch of fairly important stuff on the way through. (I must've told him half a dozen times that he should have had the truck on the stands, and the tranny on the jack, but would he listen? Hell no... Damn fool... Oddly enough, he never again left a jack holding up a vehicle. Guess he learned his lesson the hard way.)

Two tons more capacity, seven inches more lift, and ten bucks less money at the same store -- hmm, what was the question again? :)

I don't quite grok the whole concept of the "aluminum racing jack" that has become popular in recent years. For most people these are rollaround garage equipment, not something to carry in the vehicle or to lift by hand very often. If you're not on a pit crew and thus don't care about split seconds in shoving a jack underneath a car, it seems like an excellent problem to throw lots of steel at.

Well, that's the real lesson no matter how generous the rating. Jacks are for raising vehicles; jack stands are for holding them. (The solidly built kind of jackstands, not those things that are made of spot welded sheet metal, which are fine until the day you discover the hidden corrosion and learn the meaning of "avalanche failure." Jack stands are another great place to throw a lot of metal at the problem.) If my pink hide is going under the car, I also like to shove a piece of railroad tie or big tree-trunk "cookie" or at least the spare tire into some appropriate location.

The spare-tire trick is also good for roadside tire changing, which you're usually doing without jackstands. Just in case, y'know, even though you shouldn't be going under the car or inserting any body parts into pinch points when doing that. Jacks do slip, and I like being three dimensional.

Merry Christmas and many more of 'em through safe work practices,

--Joe