Jacking up the CX-5

karog

Member
:
2014 CX-5 Touring AWD
I have some questions about jacking up the CX-5. The lift points for the car's jack lie along ribs about .75" high and maybe .2" thick that run roughly from just behind the front wheel to just in front of the rear wheels on each side. The lift points are marked with dimples in the rib. The jack has a slot in it to position around the rib.

My first question is, if one uses a floor jack with a flat disk lift surface, are the ribs strong enough to hold the weight of the car? If not, where should one position such a floor jack?

Whenever one lifts a car with a jack, especially to work underneath it, one should use jack stands. If you have lifted the car at the lift point, where does one place the jack stand? Under the rib next to the lift?

Looking under the car, I was surprised how much plastic covering there is and how few places to apply lift pressure.

I would appreciate hearing from the collected wisdom of the folks here. Thanks.
 
always use jack stands, even if you dont plan on getting underneath. just good, safe practice right there. you can usually find a spot on the subframes to place the stands.

when i use my floor jack, i have an old hockey puck that i place on the flat plate surface. gives a little bit of squish to protect the car finishes.
 
The "pinch weld" you describe is dimensionally the same from front to rear and you can use a floor jack on it at any point. Mazda designates four cornor jacking points for dummies who cannot figure out where to place the jack to lift an individual wheel. Jack stands should be placed on the pinch weld right behind (front) or in front of (rear) these jacking points. Incidently, many would argue it's best to use a pinch weld jack adaptor such as this:https://www.ebay.com (commissions earned) to protect the weld when jacking. I made my own out of a $3 hockey puck.
 
Thanks for the replies. I had already made an "adapter" by cutting a 3.5" square from a 2x4 with a slot in it. Thanks for the link to the adapter. I did not know such a thing existed though $21 with shipping seems a bit much.

There is some exposed frame right where the dimples on the pinch joints are for the lift points. Elsewhere along the joint is plastic covered making the underlying support less obvious.

I too expected to find obvious places to put a jack and was surprised by how much plastic covered so many areas and how obvious lift places were few and far between.

I think I will just make some more adapters for my jack stands.
 
I have some questions about jacking up the CX-5. The lift points for the car's jack lie along ribs about .75" high and maybe .2" thick that run roughly from just behind the front wheel to just in front of the rear wheels on each side. The lift points are marked with dimples in the rib. The jack has a slot in it to position around the rib.

My first question is, if one uses a floor jack with a flat disk lift surface, are the ribs strong enough to hold the weight of the car? If not, where should one position such a floor jack?

Whenever one lifts a car with a jack, especially to work underneath it, one should use jack stands. If you have lifted the car at the lift point, where does one place the jack stand? Under the rib next to the lift?

I recommend the floor jack be placed on the two obvious locations where the A-arm for each front wheel attaches to the chassis. I have the AWD model and jack the rear from the rear differential. I use a (square) 6" long piece of 2" x 6" softwood laid flat on top of the floor jack so as not to mar the bolt heads.

If I'm changing wheels/tires or brake pads there is no need to get under the vehicle. Otherwise, with a car with as much ground clearance as the CX-5, wheel ramps are sufficient for most types of work (oil change, etc.). If you do decide to use jack stands on the side frame rails, they should be designed to be used on pinch welds or have an appropriate pinch weld adapter.

The pinch welds should never be used to jack from directly. Even if they are strong enough to not deform in an obvious manner, they are not designed to support the weight of the vehicle. At a minimum you will damage the rust protection which could be problematic in the future. The side rails are beefed up in the four areas you mentioned that are meant to be used for lifting with the included jack. I would not lift at other points along the side rails. You would probably get away without damage but there is no need to lift on the areas that are not specifically designed for lifting.
 
Thanks, MikeM. You confirmed exactly what I thought. And I will go look for the front lift points you described. My most common use will be to switch to winter wheels and back. The dealer where I bought my car has free oil changes for life so I might as well take advantage of that.

When I bought the car I had to have it inspected. I did not like the idea of the inspection garage using a lift jack to check the front wheels placed under the pinch welds and asked about it. He assured me it was ok but since it was a brand new car, he said he did not need to lift it anyway this time. Next time I will take my home made adapter mentioned in my 2nd post just above yours.
 
Thanks for the replies. I had already made an "adapter" by cutting a 3.5" square from a 2x4 with a slot in it. Thanks for the link to the adapter. I did not know such a thing existed though $21 with shipping seems a bit much.

There is some exposed frame right where the dimples on the pinch joints are for the lift points. Elsewhere along the joint is plastic covered making the underlying support less obvious.

I too expected to find obvious places to put a jack and was surprised by how much plastic covered so many areas and how obvious lift places were few and far between.

I think I will just make some more adapters for my jack stands.
I did the same thing with a piece of 2x4 and it lasted for a while. Now I have two cars (Mazdas) with pinch welds, so I figured it was worth the $3 hockey puck investment. It's a much better alternative.
 
I did the same thing with a piece of 2x4 and it lasted for a while. Now I have two cars (Mazdas) with pinch welds, so I figured it was worth the $3 hockey puck investment. It's a much better alternative.
I have an old hockey puck, never used for hockey. It was a promotional item I was given long ago.

Did you cut a slot in it? If so how? That's some hard rubber. I don't want to muck it up by doing it some stupid way. It is only 1" thick and the pinch weld is about .75" to .80" so that would not leave much connective tissue with a slot.
 
At the risk of challenging SayNoToPistons authority on all things hocky, just chuck the puck up in a surface vice, mark a line across the center of it, set your skillsaw for a 1/2" cut and make a couple or three passes accross it til you have a groove measuring about 1/4" wide. That way you still have 1/2" of puck for the pinchweld to rest on and the top of the puck will not contact the sheet metal adjacent to the weld.
 
I would use the hockey puck formula too if I used the pinch welds to jack the car.
 
I have an AWD Touring. I looked at the rear differential for using a floor jack. The differential is oddly shaped. It has three front to rear sections. The front is where the driveshaft comes in. It mates to a center section which has 5 thin concave ribs. That mates to a small rear section which is close to the exhaust pipe before the muffler.

It is not clear to me where to set the floor check under this. The ideal place would be the mating joint between the middle and rear sections which is nicely flat but it is too narrow between the exhaust pipe and some sort of metal flange which drops down about .7" and is roughly 1" wide on the passenger side edge of the joint. Would this "flange" be a good point though it is a bit off center of the car? The ribs of the center section might be too fragile if one of them took all of the weight. The joint between the front and middle section is rounded and has a descender for a mating bolt.

I tried placing a 10" 2"x4" across the rear mating joint and the front one and this might work but it would be a pita for one person to place the wood and get the jack up under it.

For those of you have used the rear differential, where do you set the jack under it? Maybe I am just over thinking it.
 
The cast housing of the rear differential has a beefy extension that drops down from the rest of the housing. That is the jack point. It is offset about 3" from the vehicles centerline to provide plenty of jack clearance from the exhaust.
 
The cast housing of the rear differential has a beefy extension that drops down from the rest of the housing. That is the jack point. It is offset about 3" from the vehicles centerline to provide plenty of jack clearance from the exhaust.
Excellent. This was what I was asking about in my post #12:
some sort of metal flange which drops down about .7" and is roughly 1" wide on the passenger side edge of the joint. Would this "flange" be a good point though it is a bit off center of the car?
Was this specifically designed to be a lift point? I can fathom no other purpose for it.
 
Excellent. This was what I was asking about in my post #12:

Was this specifically designed to be a lift point? I can fathom no other purpose for it.

Judging by it's size and shape I would venture to guess that it was designed for two purposes. First as an aid during manufacture and secondly as a jack point.

If I wanted to use the CX-5 to do the type of off-roading I did in my youth, I would cut that bugger off with a Sawzall. It would still work as a jack point but you would get less lift with any given floor jack.
 
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