In the past when I needed to rotate tires on a car two screw jacks were used, one on each of the reinforced areas of the pinch weld just inside from each tire. Now that I finally own a floor jack it seems like it should be simpler, but as far as I can tell there is no solid place in the middle of the car to lift, other than on the non reinforced pinch weld itself. If the floor jack is placed on one of the reinforced sections there would be no way to place a jackstand next to it. Seems like the intended way to do this is to lift the whole front end, place a jackstand behind the front tire on one side, lift the whole back end, place a jackstand in front of the rear tire. Honestly, that seems like more work than using two screw jacks. Is there some other way of doing this?

Somewhat amusing story about why I need to do this myself. This weekend I took the car to Pepboys to have an oil change. Mostly because I didn't feel like getting dirty crawling around under the car, and also because we had things to do on Saturday and they are the only shop around here open on Sundays. They have a package deal with a "free" tire rotation, and there was a coupon. So the car was dropped car off and when I go to pick it up they had not rotated the tires because "they are too worn to rotate". This was of course total BS as the wear bars are still at least 1-2 mm below the tread. (By feel, obviously I didn't have a tread depth gauge on me, and if they had one, they didn't want to use it in front of me.) When I pointed that out they moved the bar and said there has to be at least 3 mm of tread. When I pointed out that there was at least that much the story changed again, to "the tires are cracked between the treads". They are not. So I was very grumpy with the guy at the counter about this nonsense. He sensed a "more trouble than it's worth situation" and waived the charge on the oil change. So free oil, but I still have to rotate the tires.

 

Because the tail end is so much lighter than the front, I have had success with raising both wheels on one side by lifting from the front-most reinforcement point behind the front wheel. This depends on the height of your floor jack.

Another method is to use the front jack point and put a jack stand under any of the bracing under the engine or suspension, then use the jack on the back wheel.

Either way, anytime you have the wheels off the ground, you should have a "hard" means of supporting the vehicle. My jack has a pin that provides a mechanical "lock" that will prevent the car from dropping if the hydraulics give out.

 

I never trust that the seal on a floor jack will hold, and if it is placed in that position the only spot I can put a jack stand without sticking an arm under the car is occupied.

Hmm. I don't want to go under the car at any point when the floor jack is holding it up. But I could split the difference between this and the previous method. Jack it up from the front, place one jack stand behind the front wheel, lower the jack. It could be that the engine weight will cause the car to tip to the other side and lift the back wheel off the ground. Downside - never a good idea to make a load shift on a jackstand.

No lock on mine.

If one owned a really low floor jack and a floor jack cross beam that would probably be the best solution. Adjust the cross beam to land on the reinforced sections of the pinch weld. Place jack stands (or big blocks of wood) under the cross beam. Given how low the HCHI is though, and the cross beams are several inches high, it would have to be a really, really low floor jack.