Jacking: Raising and supporting your Focus

It's often necessary to get your car off the ground so that you can work under it. Here's how!

Time Required:
5-15 minutes

Tools Needed:

A real floor jack

Jack stands

Wheel Chocks (Optional)

Procedure:

Jacking and supporting must be performed on a level surface. Never use a jack to raise a vehicle that is not on level ground, such as an inclined driveway.

Jacking points are very important. Look under the rocker panels, and look for the double-seam-welded sections. They're about 8 inches from the back of the front wheel wells, and 6 inches from the front of the rear wheel wells. You may also use the area on the front subframe where the lower transmission mount bolts up. The jack must be on one of these reinforced areas when lifting the car.

After lifting the car, you should support the car. Both sides should be supported in most situations. The acceptable jack stand locations are the reinforced areas of the rocker panels (the same locations for jacking), the rear subframe, and the rear-most mounts of the front control arms. The front subframe lifting point is unacceptable for support with a jackstand due to being off-center.

Make sure vehicle is in Park (Automatic) or Reverse (Manual) with the engine stopped and keys out of the ignition. Set parking brake.

Locate a jack point and carefully begin to raise vehicle.

Once at the desired height, place jackstands in an acceptable location as shown in the diagram above.

Slowly and carefully lower the jack and remove it from under the vehicle. If the jack or jack stand(s) shift, or if something does not look right, immediately stop the jack. If needed, re-raise the vehicle and reposition the jack stand(s).

Repeat above steps for each jack stand location desired.

To lower, place the jack at a jack point and raise the vehicle high enough to remove the jack stand. Remove jack stand from under the vehicle, then lower the vehicle to the ground. Repeat for each jack stand to be removed.

Example Photos

Double jackstand support at rear subframe:

Jack at front subframe, jack stand inserted at the back of driver's side control arm: