Please don't flame me for this, I have been slowly losing my mind over the past week or two trying to figure out what I should do.
Can anyone tell me how I am meant to have a jack stand at the pinch weld areas marked but not crush the pinch weld?
The scissor jack that comes in the K51 marked bag as standard (or at least I think it is standard) has a 2cm deep slot for the pinch weld to go in. For reference the pinch weld itself also seems to be almost 2cm in protrusion from the body. But as far as I can tell it seems like the weight of the car rests on the panel or whatever you want to call it towards the inside of the pinch weld and not on the pinch weld itself. I was looking at it as I jacked the car up using it so that's what I think is going on and also based off the scratch marks only being present on the raised section towards the centre of the body on the scissor jack and not on the outside raised section or the of the it seems to tell the same story. I have attached some photos to show what I mean, more to follow.
Now I don't want to just put a jack stand underneath the pinch weld and hope it doesn't bend. But the jack stand pads online don't seem to have the same depth cut out like the scissor jack does, which in my head just results in the pinch weld edge taking the load again. The only pads I have seen that potentially have enough clearance was a hokey puck looking one for an E30 M3 but those types don't seem like they will be very stable on the jack stand I have access to, they seem more suitable for a floor jack.
I don't want to risk just putting the jack stand on the panel towards the inside of the body where the pinch weld jack point is marked either as the top of my jack stands are 11cm long by 3cm wide and are not flat at the top but more of that V shape with a flat centre and that would place the weight on an area outside pinch weld jack point indents which are 6cm apart along the pinch weld, potentially causing the weight to be resting on an unsupported area? Also the jack stand would not have the widest length running laterally in relation to the car body which probably would make them less stable laterally.
I have read everything I can on spyderchat and here. Checked online, conflicting information. And even if I wanted to follow the use a jack pad advice I don't see how it will help here for the reasons I mentioned.
As for placing jack's stands on subframe control arm mounting points. Won't that bend the metal? I know the same can potentially be said about the use of the inside panel at the pinch weld jack point but please do correct me if I am wrong about this I am just trying to figure this out. Where would it go at the front? I assume the rear would use the lower control arm connection point to the subframe, but wouldn't too much of the load be placed there? Considering that if the car were to be on the ground the weight would be distributed through the strut top and the lower control arm at minimum? maybe less so through the toe arm and traction arm? Wait, now that I think about it more the strut top seems like the only point that really carries most of the cars load, the lower control arm would just help guide the camber curve, I don't see how the metal that it would then attach to at the subframe will be able to hold the cars weight without deflecting, if it were designed for that would they not have said it can be used as such in the manual?
Please help. :'(
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