Lightweight, wide enough for modern tyres and with a three-tonne rating, these Sealey car ramps make a nice upgrade to your old metal items

For anyone working on cars at home without the benefit of a workshop lift, the humble car ramp has long been a staple piece of kit. When you just want enough room to shimmy under the car, it’s so much quicker than jacks and axles stands – and generally a lot safer too.

I suspect that many of you will, like me, have a pair of ancient hand-me-down ramps lurking the back of the garage, generally metal and bearing the scars and overspray of generations of use and abuse. They’re generally fine for ’60s and ’70s cars with their skinny tyres, lofty ride height and high front bumpers but increasingly we’ve come up against the issue that with more modern cars – even many ’80s models –  the steep approach angle and narrow contact area means they’re somewhat sketchy, often risking damage to expensive tyres when wider modern rubber overhangs the sharp metal edges.

All of which explains why we were keen to sample an upgrade, neatly provided by Sealey in the shape of their polypropylene car ramps – plastic, in other words.

You might raise an eyebrow at the use of plastic, but these ramps are rated at 1.5 tonnes per ramp, meaning a three-tonne capacity as a pair. Impressively, that covers the heaviest of modern classics including the likes of the Bentley Continental.

Meanwhile, the maximum tyre width is a generous 260mm – a 260-section tyre in other words – with a total length of 900mm and an approach angle noticeably less severe than older designs.

Testing

We tried the Sealey ramps with a Honda S2000 and an E90-generation BMW 330d, neither of which even come close to troubling the load rating. The 205/55 tyres on the Honda and the 225/35s of the BMW both fitted easily, with plenty of spare width to line the ramps up easily.

One issue we did come up against was that despite the less severe approach angle, the bottom of the front bumper on both cars still touched the ramp before the tyres were off the ground, but this was easily solved by placing a couple of wood offcuts in front of them. To be fair, this will largely depend on the shape and style of the car’s bodywork more than its ride height and the majority will be fine. For drastically lowered cars Sealey can also supply low-profile ramps under reference CAR3000LR although they offer just a modest 65mm ramp height.

In all other respects the Sealey ramps were easy to use and despite their light weight, stayed put while driving up on to them – often a problem with rear-drive cars which tend to push the ramps forwards. A prominent front stop makes one-person use easy without danger of rolling off the front.

Although they don’t stack inside each other, their light weight makes them easy to store and I was surprised to find they were also compact enough for the pair of them to fit inside the modest boot of the S2000.

Sealey car ramps: our verdict

As an upgrade to an old pair of heavy, narrow car ramps, Sealey’s lightweight plastic ramps are ideal, with the load rating and width to cope with modern cars as well as classics. Looks like we’ll be keeping these for another few generations.

Sealey Car Ramps 1.5 Tonne Capacity CAR3000C specifications

RRP
£118.74

Manufacturer
Sealey

Rated load
1.5 tonnes each or 3 tonnes per pair

Length
900mm

Width
300mm (260mm tread width)

Ramp height
160mm

Ramp angle
15°

Net weight
4kg each

Guarantee
1 year