Thinking of buying a Winch or Hi-Lift with Off Road Kit?

[gavin.]

Last summer, while preparing for what turned out to be a highly enjoyable Alpine adventure (courtesy of Alpine Rovers), my wife and I had a little bit of a quandary. We wanted to make sure, to the best of our limited ability, that we were capable of extracting ourselves and our vehicle from most situations without the use of another vehicle. This meant the usual instances of getting cross-axled, stuck in mud, etc. To do this we had many options available to us but in the end we narrowed it down to 2:

1. a front bumper-mounted winch, or

2. a Hi-Lift with an ORK and a set of military surplus mild steel sand ladders.

There are some obvious pro's and con's to these options which I'll list below:

WINCH

Pro's
Long pull
Powerful
Fast
Simple to operate
Low user work load
Looks the part

Con's
Very expensive
Heavy
Requires either battery or hydraulics and therefore running engine
Realistically only able to pull in the direction of the vehicle i.e. forward
Attractive to thieves

HI-LIFT & ORK

Pro's
Far cheaper
Hi-Lift already required for maintenance
Pull in any direction fore/aft/sidewards
Versatile
Light

Con's
Short-pull
Slow
Labour intensive
Potentially dangerous to operator

So this left us with a decision to make. For this instance we chose the Hi-Lift option, primarily as we were probably going to be time rich and we were both physically fit enough to cope with the excursion at altitude and the savings could be used for other things.

Have we used it in anger? Yes. Though not in the Alps, thankfully. But before we left, we made sure that we were both happy with how to use the equipment effectively and safely. Let me give you a run though the equipment and it's use.

What's included?

Main and stopper chains
Shackles x2
Adapters for Hi-Lift baseplate and runner
Tree Strap
Gloves
Fabric kit bag

What isn't included

Hi-Lift jack
Tow strap
Tow chain
Tools for adapters

How does it work?

Simple really! You attach the baseplate-end of the jack (using the supplied adapters) to a stopper chain, the runner to the main chain (again, using the adapter), the top of the jack to the vehicle via a tow rope and use the tow chain to attach to your chosen anchor point. Then, following the safety precautions and instructions in the manual (note the deliberate mistake(s) on the video) you winch yourself to freedom!


Link


That's the theory. When put into practice in 2 and a half feet of mud, it works quite well, if a bit slow! You might notice on these pictures that we pulled from 2 different points at different stages of the recovery. The first was to the right of shot to try and bring the front end of the vehicle to the left and the second was straight ahead to pull the vehicle up a steep ledge.

[dxmedia]

Trifor or a copy. Can be had for £30 of the bay if you look hard enough and can pull a house down.

[gavin.]

[spacehopper]

If you arent planning on using a winch then dont bother.

Like they say buy a Tirfor ........or a HiLift with the bits that will help you winch with it .
AND
A small compressor such as a Truck Air. Airing down your tyres will massively increase traction should you need it.

A Hilift and a Truck Air will cost far less than a winch and be more useful!