I have a craftsman 3 ton. It’s heavy and I had to mod it so the wheels would stay on, but other than that it’s been solid. I’ve had it 5-6 years now and use it at least weekly
Just bought a aluminum low profile 1.5 ton harbor freight specifically to support engine/transmission as a second jack. It’s not tall enough to do anything serious on a mk7, you’d never get jackstands under it. But just to swap tires at the drag strip or auto x it’ll be nice since it’s very light and compact.
I’ve used the harbor freight 3 ton aluminum jack, it’ll honestly be your best bet. Any jack can fail so be your own safety...never trust a jack, always put a minimum of two jack stands under the car before YOU get under the car. You should never be rely on a single stand or jack to keep the car off your head.
Obviously I should have better equipment for as much side work as I do, but properly inspected and maintained cheap stuff is better than expensive and neglected so do your part and you can diy for decades on bottom shelf lifting equipment. I’ll hopefully have my two post lift in the next year, need to build our new house first tho so it’s on the back burner so floor jacks till then