Ever since I had a scissors jack fail while jacking up my Ford F100
pickup with me up in the wheel well, I've been very leery of using
them on heavy vehicles. It was only dumb luck that I was able to
propel myself quickly enough backwards into a concrete wall that I
survived. I'm not sure exactly what it is that you're trying to do,
but I'd probably be looking at some combination of the original jack,
seriously heavy duty jack stands, and a high-quality floor jack.

Safety first, always.
Marc Perdue

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 1:35 PM, Michael McSwain
<michaelmcswain@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?