You are ready to install a fresh batch of parts on your Subaru, but how do you go about going supporting your Subaru safely and securely to confidently work under your car. When you glance under your car there are many metal objects you could situate your jack on to lift the car up, but which are sturdy and made to take this abuse? Where is the proper locations to place your jack stands after you have sent your vehicle skyward?

I use slightly taller jacks on the Forester. My standard sized jacks will barely keep the wheels off the ground.

We all know that using just a car jack is quite unsafe and can easily fail with one wrong move. Below we should answer all these questions and help you work on your car without incident. Being that all Subaru’s are very similar to one another we will use a 12 Impreza for our test car. So let us get to the task at hand!

Time Frame

With your jack stands, jack and flat ground you will need around five to ten minutes to get the vehicle off the ground and on the jack stands.

Tools

As expected we need a car jack to get the car into the air. I have used this Pittsburgh jack for the last three years, it has been pretty much bullet proof for me and works well on both my STi and Forester.

Always good to have a few extras just in case!

Pittsburgh 3 ton low profile jack

Craftsman standard jack stands

Craftsman High lift jack stands

Hyper Tough jack stands

I have many jack stands, some work better for my lowered Sti but are almost useless on my lifted Forester.. and vice versa.

On to the task

The best place to start is a level and flat piece of pavement/cement, then place your car in park or in gear(manual trans) with your parking brake engaged. It is also a good idea to chock the rear wheels with any object you can.

Parking brake and gear selected! For manual cars just put it in a gear.

Next up you can slide the jack under the front end of the car and find the front jacking plate. This is located behind the oil pan and sometimes the steering rack. Other times the rack is housed right above it. Once you have it centered on the jacking plate you can begin to lift the vehicle.

It’s pretty easy to spot this plate under your Subaru. It should be towards the rear of the car past the oil pan.

Once you have the vehicle lifted to a proper height for your repair, you can place the jack stands. For the front end of the car you can use the reinforced pinch welds that will hold the weight easily. If you are working on that part of the car you can use the inner unibody frame rails. I would recommend the pinch welds, this gives the widest base and therefore the least likelihood of it falling.

On the front of the car these are prime locations. The pinch weld gives a slightly wider base, I would recommend it.

If you need to work on the side skirts or somewhere near the pinch weld the unibody frame rails are happy to do the work too.

If you have an older Subaru with a front U-frame you can place jack stands on it near any of the bolts of it. You can also use it to jack up the car but not the front section near the radiator. It isn’t bolted directly to the unibody and can/will bend if you use it.

On my Forester and STi I often use to U-frame to get a little bit of extra height when only lifting the front of the car.

Now that you are done with the front let us move toward the back of the car. The easiest and best location will be the rear differential. If your jack has a metal plate on it I would highly recommend using a piece of wood to not chip or damage the diff.

Using a piece of wood helps keep the rear diff from chipping or damage when lifting it.

Finding the flattest portion of the diff you can commence to lifting.

With the rear of the car up in the air you can once again place your jack stands, making sure that the jack stands are at equal height. The most choice location being the pinch welds once again, these will be the most sturdy. Your next choices would be a flat piece of the suspension that bolts to the unibody. For my older Subarus I use the front of the trailing arm.

With equal heights on the jack stands we can start lowering it down to them.

Not the easiest to see but these rear jack stands are on the trailing arms

Having your car up on all four jack stands you can now give the car a jounce to make sure the car is stable and equally supported. For your safety you can place a wheel and tire under the car with you, now if a jack stand fails the car will fall and be stopped by the wheel and tire, just an extra precaution to keep the car from falling directly on you. If you don’t have a sizable tire to do this with you can always place an extra jack stand just underneath a stable piece of suspension, this will be extra insurance if one of the main jack stands fail.

Up in the air and very balanced. It is good to push down on part of the car after setting your jack stands to make sure everything is stable.

I have been working on my own cars for many years and have yet to have a car fall off the jack stands or have a jack stand fail. But being fully or over prepared is never a bad idea in this case.

Congrats! Now with your car off the ground you can begin your project! Always remember to be safe while under the car. Jack stands are much safer than a jack but keep in mind just how much a car weighs if it decides to come down. Any extra safety precautions that are listed above are well worth it.

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