How to Pass an Automotive Lift Institute (ALI) Safety Audit

Under ANSI/ALI ALOIM, every automotive lift needs a periodic inspection by a qualified lift inspector at least once a year. Many shops call this their “ALI audit.” Passing an ALI lift inspection is less about the day the inspector arrives and more about the eleven months before it.

What a qualified inspector will look at

The inspector examines each lift against the manufacturer’s requirements and the ALOIM checkpoints for that lift type: structure, anchors, arms and restraints, locks, cables, hydraulics, controls, labels and the surrounding floor. Many will also ask about:

• Operator inspection records showing trained operators checked the lift before use.
• Operator training for the people who run each lift.
• Past deficiencies and evidence that each one was repaired before the lift went back in service.
• Manuals and labels kept on site and legible.

Common reasons lifts fail

Worn or missing arm restraint parts, frayed cables, locks that do not engage evenly, hydraulic leaks, damaged or wrong lift pads, missing capacity decals and cracked concrete around anchors come up again and again. Nearly all of them are visible during a daily inspection long before the annual one.

How to prepare

1. Run your own full inspection of every lift a few weeks early and fix what you find.
2. Pull the past year of inspection records per lift and fill any gaps you can honestly document.
3. Confirm your training records are current.
4. Make sure manuals, labels and capacity decals are in place.

Produce the report in seconds

AutoLift Pro generates an ALI-format PDF for each inspection, with checklist items mapped to their ALOIM section codes, photos of deficiencies, the passing label number and the date the label was applied. When an inspector or insurer asks for history, you export it instead of hunting for it.

New to the standard? Read ANSI/ALI ALOIM:2020 explained, then see how to keep maintenance logs that hold up.