How much does it cost your shop to have an auto lift down for two weeks? I'm guessing a lot!
Why not have them inspected at least annually by an ALI Certified Lift Inspector to identify the problems BEFORE the lift is inoperable while waiting for parts and repairs? A lift inspection is thousands of dollars less than a lift taken out of service production for a few weeks. There is nothing more important for your technician's safety than an annual lift inspection and for the shops bottom line.
Not only do annual lift inspections save the shop money, they're required.
"If anything happens — an accident, a snap inspection, even a disgruntled employee reporting a violation — the first thing L&I, DOSH or OSHA will ask you for is your lift inspection documentation," says Ed Gibbons, fixed operations specialist for Automotive Compliance Consulting Inc. of Crystal Lake, Ill.
OSHA has a general duty clause which makes it necessary to provide a safe work environment for all employees. As a shop owner or manager, you are encouraged to follow the recommendations of ANSI and the manufacturer of the lifts as to the frequency of inspections. As a minimum all inspection points must be inspected annually.
Are your car lifts being inspected annually by an ALI Certified Lift Inspector? Probably not...
According to OSHA, they should be. OSHA- annual inspections of lifts are aimed at catching such maintenance lapses which can get very expensive if you don’t have proof of annual inspections and proper maintenance records. Lift Inspections Arizona can perform all lift inspections and provide the service manager with the required paperwork that would need to be presented in the event of a lift related injury, insurance audit, L&I, DOSH or OSHA inspection.
Did your last lift inspector actually place a vehicle on each lift in your shop to test the hydraulics or did they just come in and tighten a few anchor bolts and call it good? We follow ALI/ANSI guidelines and really put a vehicle on each lift and time how long it takes to come down so we can do a math formula to determine feet per minute descent (FPMD) to determine the condition of the hydraulic system on each one of your lifts. This is a very important step in the inspections process that non-ALI certified inspectors usually ignore.
Only Automotive Lift Institute Certified Vehicle Lift Inspectors are trained to follow the guidelines set forth by the Automotive Lift Institute and the American National Standards Institute.