Had a stock jack fail last night.  No harm done to me or the van luckily
and I spent the next couple of hours looking at a million jack options on
the samba. Seems like part of the problem is that you have to raise the
body so high in order to extend the suspension far enough to lift the tire
off of the ground.  Would a scissor jack under the control arm not be a
decent option allowing you to raise the van only the few inches actually
needed to get the tire off the ground?  Is there an advantage, (other than
suspension maintenance obviously), to uncompressing the suspension?