Titan 3-Ton Exhaust Jack
By Nick Carter
Despite the fact that these bags look a lot like bags of leaves piled in front of a car, what they really are is air-lift bags that can jack up your car or light truck under its own power. The Titan jack uses the vehicle’s exhaust to inflate a bag that lifts the car.
Seems interesting, but having never used one we have no idea how well they work. This either sounds like a very good or very bad idea. On one hand, no pump required. On the other hand you now have your car sitting on a bag of exhaust gas. Anyone out there have one?
Amazon has the 3-ton Titan Exhaust Jack for $109.99.
Titan Air Jack [Chandler Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]
September 9th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I don’t know about this one. I know that emergency crews have used inflatable bags for years to lift various objects. On the website (featuring multiple run-on sentences and other grammatical nightmares) the hose never seems to be connected to the vehicle being lifted. It doesn’t say whether or not you use the vehicle to be lifted or a separate vehicle to inflate the ‘jack’. Personally, I’m wary of having a car on any jack running while in the air. The website also mentions that the bag will stay inflated for ‘up to 45 minutes’ - which I’m assuming means after the car supplying the exhaust is turned off. I’d want to know if that means the vehicle is slowly being lowered during this 45 minutes. Doesn’t sound like the best setup to me.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:07 am
My grandfather and I once devised a contraption that mated the car exhaust with a Hav-a-Hart trap in order to euthanize the squirrels he caught. We abandoned it as too cruel. This reminds me of it.
This actually seems like a pretty damn good idea if your car got stuck in the mud or something. As far as safety goes, it can’t be more dangerous than the crappy little scissor jack that comes in your car…
September 9th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I’ve used it and it is fairly straight forward to use. Smack it on the exhaust pipe while you have it positioned under the car and up it goes. The large surface area make lifing a car or truck easy. Just make sure you have the car in park with the parking brake on as it may roll around a little (the jack doesn’t really always want to stay put).
I’m not sure how this would work with dual exhausts or dual exhaust tips. When you deflate it you will end up smelling like exhaust.
For something that can fit in a bag and can easily let you change a tire or get out of a jam on unlevel/soft ground this would be ideal for offroad use.
The standard trunk mounted bottle jack works fine for street applications.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:55 am
If you have even a small (otherwise unnoticeable) exhaust leak this baby will stall at the first few hundred pounds. So buy it, try it (looks OK to me), stow it in your car for 50k miles while you develop a small pre-tailpipe orifice, then pull it out, try it and kiss your $109 goodbye. Now where did I put that jack?
I tried one so you don’t need to.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I’m not sure I would agree with you generalist. . .
a small leak really shouldn’t be an issue. The amount of air going out that leak vs. the overall output from the exhaust would make the leak marginal if noticeable at all. The pressure in the “jack” is fairly low and I think the engine would stall out before pushing all it’s air through a tiny pin hole.
September 9th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I’ve got one. Well, not this exact one, it’s an X-Jack from Bushranger http://www.bushranger.com.au/xjack.php
I got it for off road use, and in the snow here in Canada. It does what it’s supposed to do, and does it well. It spreads the load out so you can jack on sand and other soft surfaces.
Almost a must for offroading. But you’ll look silly if you use it to change a flat tire. Although, that being said, my other car is a low slung car with no ground clearance, and this is only an inch high when deflated.
September 9th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
@ non-beleivers, as you all know there isn’t one tool that’s good at everything. That being said, these are way more safe than bumper jacks and much less hard on bumpers. When your 4×4 is stuck in deep snow or mud and you need to lift it while remaining stable this type of jack can’t be beat. Mine rescue crews have been using this type for years to lift large rock off of victims. This type of jack has it’s place in the world. Nuff said.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:14 am
I can see the broad area coverage of this jack would serve well, especially on semi-soft or uneven surfaces and where the vehicle is too close to the ground for a mechanical jack. However, having been almost caught once by a very slowly leaking hydraulic jack, I worry about other’s suffering the same thing. By the time I noticed the car was sinking I could barely squeeze out. While I’m sure these are very tough, there must be at least some risk of failure as they age. I wonder if there’s a date stamp on them?
September 13th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I’ve got one that I’ve never used. Though I can’t see how this would be any more dangerous than a catastrophic failure of any jack which is why you should never trust any jack and always use blocking of some sort or stands if you are going to put anything you care about between the ground and what ever the jack is holding up.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Personal experience tells me that my regular car jack doesn’t work in the dirt. (Imagine my surprise and head-scratching.) As has been said, this contraption would be your option when your regular jack fails you.