Thanks guys. Yeah, Derek Weaver, Direct Lift Pro Park 8, purchased new just about two years ago. They were good on my first call. The unit shipped missing a one or two of the big hanger bolts for the ramps. I was able to assemble it with the almost-as-long bolts that shipped with the steel "crate" they used to ship it, and swapping those out for the right ones a week later was painless.
When it leaked the first time a few months ago I called them and was told it could be normal. A little juice often gets past the seals when you first assemble it, yadda yadda. I wanted good news so I cleared it (raise it to the max with no load) and carried on.
The bad leaks a couple weeks ago were much worse than the first one, and the ramps weren't very high. That's when I called again. This time they're like "you need new seals." I was all like "Fair enough, you should give them to me." They answered, "your warranty on the hydraulics is one year."
So I paid $110 or something for the seal kit, grudgingly, thinking why should the seals fail so quickly on a little-used lift that seldom has much weight on it?
And now I know.
The old seals are very clearly abraided flat where they ran along the now rusted bottom of the tube.
So yeah DW gets a pleasant call tomorrow and they will be given the opportunity to send me, at no charge, a new cylinder.
But if they decline I'm not sure what I can do. It's maybe a $600-$800 part retail, I guess (so far I can't find the exact one for sale), so there's no way I win with a lawsuit.
I suppose I could just clean it out best I can, buy a proper one-way pressure relief valve (also not apparently available on the DW site), muddle on and bad-mouth the company forever but that's not a real palatable option either.
Guess we'll see how they do.