Putting 2002 Alroad 2.5TDI AKE on Axle Stands

[ceilidhalfie]

I am going to get my local tyre fitter to refurbish all 4 alloys and at the same time fit 4 new tyres. The deal is that they would come out and put the car an axle stands and take away the 4 wheels & refit 3 days later.
I know to lock the suspension before jacking up the car, but are there specific points where the axle stands should be placed? Maybe a daft question this, but when I take it to them for a tyre refit I always feel they ar not too fussy where the put the trolley jack.
So I guess I also need to know where a trolley jack should be placed (front and rear) when raising the car.

[big1pie2003]

I change all 4 wheels on mine every year when I put winter/summer tyres on.

As you said, use the "jacking mode". Then, I use two trolley jacks and do the front end first, placing the jacks in behind the front wheels. You'll see a "prominent" downward pointing nipple its about 18 inch inwards from the wheel (difficult to describe) but it looks like it would sit nicely in the palm of your hand (no really). This is where I always jack the car up. It may look like the tyre fitters are not fussed but if you put it in the wrong place, you can cause serious damage (right the thing off!)
Then I use wooden blocks (the wooden blocks that hold pallets together)to protect the part of the subframe where I place the axle stands. Whatever you did when you did the timing belt to get to the wheel arch liners (that was you?) will be fine.
The only thing I would say is do not put anything on the body. The weight concentration in a small area might see you put a hole in the floor.

The rear end is a pain in the **** to get onto axle stands. Wooden blocks again and I carefully jack up at the lowest pivot point (place wood here). Then jack really high until the opposite side is clear of the ground and then I place an axle stand under the opposite side to where I'm jacking. Sounds and looks a bit dodgy. If you are not too confident placing the axle stands I would wait until the tyre fitter gets there to do the rear end.

If in doubt don't take the chance, you could really damage the car and worse, really hurt yourself. I'm taking no responsibilty for your car dropping on top of you and rolling down the street into playground and exploding ;-)

Regards,

Pat

[ceilidhalfie]

On reflection, I am going to rent a couple of old wheels from my local breaker. I just don't feel compfortable leaving the car on stands for 3 days. I can use the spare for the 3rd wheel and leave the fourth on the scissor jack (with a bottle jack as backup!). When I did the cambelt job I jacked up the fronts one at a time to remove the bumper bolts.

[allan_audi]

On reflection, I am going to rent a couple of old wheels from my local breaker. I just don't feel compfortable leaving the car on stands for 3 days. I can use the spare for the 3rd wheel and leave the fourth on the scissor jack (with a bottle jack as backup!). When I did the cambelt job I jacked up the fronts one at a time to remove the bumper bolts.

The correct jacking/lifting points are on all four corners of the sill, where the lip of the sill sticks down, not on the flat part of the sill as you might think. You can see that the join here is broad. Think it shows you in the handbook. I've had mine resting on these for several weeks on a H-Frame Hydraulic ramp.

Don't let the numpties at the tyre dealers do anything different, one of them severed a cable to the rear level sensor...