I heartily agree with Spinnaker. I always use the pin and post type jack stands. Considering all the other costs involved in Boxster maintenance they are a very worthwhile investment. Call me paranoid, but when tires come off I use 4 jack stands and place a wheel under the car as as last ditch insurance in case of catastrophic failure.

I have both styles, when properly set I see no problem with using ratcheting stands. As others have suggested redundancy is your friend. I never minded just raising one end or the other, it's trying to raise a Boxster on four corners high enough to say drop the transmission, that I always found a bit nerve wracking.

Thanks! Perfect photo.

My daughter's boyfriend (usually referred to simply as "the lout") was changing the drop links on his dad's Caravan earlier this week.

It was classic:
-van lifted using factory jack and no supplementary support like ramps or jack stands. Didn't even slide the wheel underneath the vehicle as a "just in case"
-wheels not chocked because the emergency brake was set. Unfortunately nobody told him the ebrake didn't work.
-he was sitting in the wheel well doing the work

When the van rolled off the jack the brake rotor came down on his foot. He was lucky that he was working on gravel and not concrete. He was lucky that his dad was there and strong enough to lift the corner of the van enough for him to pull his foot out from under the rotor. He was lucky he just fractured a couple of bones.

Jeez, I shudder reading stories like this. I still get nervous getting underneath the car even when there's jack(s) + jack stand(s) + one or two 'just-in-case' wheels slid under there.

My kid's gf at one point had a Mercury Marquis, a great tank of a car, that had its fuel pump go. Replacement entailed tank removal. I unenthusiastically volunteered to help and, unfortunately, the kid took me up on my offer. At that point I had had little experience working under cars and hadn't even really developed a real trust in stands. I kept sliding wheels and stacks of 2x12's etc under various places to be safe. At one point the kid complained with all the stuff under there we barely had room to work! :rolleyes:

Another story:
A guy I worked with had his brother pinned under his car when the cheap jack stands he was using failed. The pin sheared off and the stand collapsed down. This was back in the 60's when we all drove Detroit iron that weighed over 2 tons. The force of the impact spread the legs out on the jack stand. He didn't get hurt because the stand only collapsed to its lowest level and only pinned him.
Don't ever buy those cheap tin can gauge jack stands. You only have one life, isn't it worth a few bucks more to keep it.

Wow. Those stories are spine tingling. I was under my Miata all weekend replacing the shocks and sways and had it on four jackstands along with my jack as a backup and all of the wheels under the car just in case.

I guess as I get older I know how much its going to hurt if something bad happens. :D

A Miata?? Hell, you should be able to bench press one of them!! :D

**Edit: Seems the post I was responding to has been deleted

THAT is a very good point to bring up.. when i did my gear oil and engine oil i buy NEW filler plugs from the local main stealer.

New gear oil cost - about 90 Pounds

New Engine Oil cost - about 80 pounds

new filler plugs from the main stealer - about 6 pounds !!.

for what we spend on oil, new filler plugs are VERY cheap insurance from ending up with rounded off plugs, needing to be removed. i'd arther pay less than a big mac and fries not to have a screwed up lug to deal with (besides the new one from the main stealer are anodised blue so you can see at a glance their condition)