2QUICK6 , maybe in my reply the other person thought I was being defensive , I wasn't , I was merely saying that all 3 of my lifts are somewhat Chinese/overseas , mainly the Prokar 4 post .I was just saying I feel safe/confident with them . Lord knows I did an extensive amount of research on lifts every time I bought one .
The Bendpak and Rotary Revolution are their own lifts , but they do have overseas factories building some if not all the parts to them . With that , when you see the numerous full blown Chinese lifts , look close they are all exactly the same dimensions/capacities/designs/etc . From what I gathered , they are basically all built at the same factory ,but then different distributors here name them their own name and off you go.Example , my Prokar at the time looked exactly like the Eagle 4 post lift and numerous others , just a name change .
The Bendpak you will not see in another similar name , they build them for themselves and that's it.I do believe Bendpak and Rotary having involved oversaes factory (which is their factory) stand behind their name and do not want any issues to hurt that.I also believe Bendapk and Rotary put a lot more research and development than most others .
Another example , I drove to NH to Greg Smith Equipment to physically put my eyes on their brand called " Atlas " , mid rise scissor , then went to a local dealer of Rotary Revolution to see their mid rise , night and day , cylinders /lock/bracing/stricter/etc. ,so that is what I bought for my midrise .
I even joined Garagejournal forum to get input , check it out , very informative .
As I said ,I also seen the Advantage Lifts 4 post set up at Mecum Harrisburg last summer, and thought it looked very well built and very similar to Backyard buddy but with a couple thousand dollar savings.
If you have no issue paying $1,200-2,000 more for your ease of mind being all USA built , the Backyard buddy would be the way to go.
The one thing I didn't like that BYB did was show a 4 post lift collapse and use it to their advantage for marketing , when that actual incident was not a lift structure failure , but the individual that it did happen to responded on a forum saying it actually was his own fault , user error , not the lift.But youy can see , someone can take that a run with it .
You do have a big decision to make as whatever lift you buy , you are spending some good money and want to hopefully have and use it for a long time.