Not so sturdy jack

 

It arrived from Amazon the day before I had to use it, about 12 hours later.  As I was inspecting a slow leak problem on the driver side of the Chevy Malibu, the a car was quickly raised with the jack.  I positioned and chucked up for the lift and used the ratcheted.  The tire was off with no issues and swapped in the temp tire.  

I assumed too soon.  After I performed the post inspection, I started to return the tire.  The reinstalling of the tire was to return the jack as was performed prior, but the first thing I noticed while lifting was a ping sound when the jack was taking on the full weight of the car.  I looked around and didn't see a problem.  I had the tire off and all looked fine

No sooner did I have the tire off, I heard another sound of metal crunching.  I should have then quickly retracted the jack, however, the tire was still not in position and it happened suddenly.  The next thing you know, the jack twisted and collapsed or sort of folded to one side.

Now it might be that the chucking had slipped, but that never was an issue with an OE jack.

 

It clearly had a weak point in the cradle part of the jack.  It is hard to see, but the cradle is twisted from the alignment of the saddle above image and the heavy bend was the result of the car landing on it.  I know this as the print of the corner was left on the lower trim of the car.  It could be the joints are not rigid enough and allowed flexing.  I could guess easily that this was not living up to the "2 Ton" rating they gave it.

I picked this jack due to the description of it having a heavy duty cradle and when it arrived, it did feel heavy like the original jack, but compared side by side to an OE jack this was another story.  The Chevy included OE jack was actually heavier although smaller looking. 

The Chevy was fine in the end, only the crushed jack, a dent in the trim and a dent in the driveway from all of this.