First off I'm an idiot, I broke one of my own rule and used a tool that looked unsafe and of poor quality. I used a cheap 20 dollar shop force jack rated for 2 tons to TRY to lift my cobalt. The sad thing is, I have a much higher quality jack, I just decided to try this one out because it was smaller and seemed easier to use in the garage.

When the jack was about halfway extended the metal that was holding the actual part that makes contact with the car buckled, causing it to slide, and for the car to come off the pad. Luckily it wasn't up too far, but it still did do some damage. My heat exchanger is now slightly bent on the bottom. to give you an idea of how bent, you can barely see a gap between that and the air dam.

I am seeking advice on what to do. The heat exchanger does not leak, and I hope it will continue to not do so. although I have only let the car idle and haven't really driven it since the incident. I don't think it will leak.

would you leave it as is, or try to shape it back a little bit. I feel like I could probably straighten it out a little bit, but don't know how good of an idea it is.

Hopefully people who do not already know this can learn from my experience. don't trust a 20 dollar jack to lift your car thats worth thousands. Also, this is a great example of why you never work under a car on a jack.

Thanks for the help though.

edit: also, the system seems to be flowing fine.

 

Sucks man.

Jack stands, jack stands, jack stands though.

Did the HE bend or did it just bend on the mounts? Pics?

Joel

 

yes jackstands and where was your lift point?

 

I have jack stands, I was lifting the car to put it on them. unfortunately it never got there.

My lift point was right, this isn't the first time I've done this by any means. Just the first time I've had this happen.

It's to late for me to go to the garage and get pics, but the actual bottom part of the heat exchanger is bent. It's the solid metal that is between the two fittings for the inlet and outlet.

 

i didnt say it was your first time i was just wondering where your lift point was that it bent your heat exchanger because everytime ive lifted my car i lift it from the sides on the frame

 

I guess that came off as a little more defensive than I meant it to. I was lifting it from the engine cradle frame.