Is jacking the front of the car by the front crossmember okay?

[BigKriss]

I started a automotive tradestart course about 2 weeks ago at Kogragh TAFE. I'm not sure if I want to be a mechanic as a career choice, but I do want to learn a lot more about working on and understadning how cars work. In class, my teacher was saying that the front crossmember was fine to lift the front of the car in this way and the cross member was designed for this purpose. I know this subject has been raised before like here

http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthr...k+cross+member

from this thread I had doubts of doing it before. Now I'm thinking it's perfectly fine to do so. I use a block of wood under the crossmember so the floor jack support doesn't "dig into" the cross member. I was also scared of lifting the front of the car to the full height of the jack via this method. In the future I think I won't be as cautious. What do other board members do?

[Dave M]

I do it, and I'm proud. I jack the diff to boot.

Living dangerously,

Dave M

[winfred]

front crossmember is fine

[E34-520iSE]

I've jacked mine up by the crossmember dozens of times. I've also jacked it up by the rear diff. Both are very robust areas to jack up - no problem BigKriss!

Cheers,

Shaun