132 J-JACK J-JACK J-JACK YOUR (CAR) BODY (UP)…

In my relentless pursuit of “wasting money or crap I don’t need” (© Lisa 2025), I’ve been looking at car jacks. I’m not sure my car comes with one as it doesn’t have a spare wheel, so I thought it best to investigate, especially as I will be swapping wheels over left, right and centre.

I’m unsure why, but I thought they would be expensive. The reality is they aren’t. For about £50, I can pick up a 2-tonne, low-profile trolley jack from Screwfix. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. For a tenner more, I can add a pair of wheel chocks to jam behind the tyres to make everything more secure.

I checked on a forum, and some of them suggested buying axle stands to support the car while working under it. This is probably good advice, but I shouldn’t be doing anything that requires me to lie under the Abarth. I will be jacking it up, whizzing off four bolts, swapping alloys, whizzing on four bolts, and then lowering the jack. I’ll run this past Eddie, though, as he is the voice of experience and reason.

Carl has an impact wrench, but I’m itchy to get my own to swap and change my wheels when I want.  If I’m not too fussed about the manufacturer, some are available for as little as £50. Still, it is more than double that for something from a brand I’ve actually heard of.  Something to ponder.