I learned the hard way not to rely on the car’s jack to hold the brick up in the air. I needed to tighten the right rear shock and figured it wouldn’t be a problem to just leave it on the jack since I wasn’t going under the car. The combination of no parking brake, no wheel wedge, and banging on the wrench sent the car teetering forward, bending the jack and gently settling down on the brake rotor. Great.

I grabbed a couple of stands and slowly jacked the car up, notch by notch. Lesson learned.