Fitting a winch to your vehicle is one of the best ways to insure against damage from trying to drive tough tracks or getting stuck and flooding your vehicle whether you’re on the beach, in a bog hole or crossing a river. The Adventure Kings Domin8r X and Domin8r Xtreme winches have the power to pull even the heaviest 4WDs out of trouble and they’re so easy to use that you’d be silly not to have one when you’re heading off road – particularly if you’re towing a trailer or caravan or you’re in a convoy with your mates who might need a helping hand – and that’s a good point, while a 4WD winch makes an excellent self-recovery tool, they’re also an excellent way to recover other vehicles. So read on to learn three ways you can use an electric winch to recover another vehicle, regardless of the situation you’re in!

 Number one is the typical recovery of another vehicle that’s bogged or stuck in a tough spot. In this situation, you can use your recovery winch to pull the other vehicle out of trouble very easily  – just remember that if the other vehicle is really stuck, particularly in deep mud that has that sticky suction effect, you might find that the winch is so powerful it pulls your vehicle forward towards the bog rather than the other vehicle out of it! With a 12,000 pound winch like the Domin8r X it’s therefore a good idea to chock your wheels, or safely anchor your vehicle to another solid object. You could strap your vehicle to another 4WD or a solid tree, which is why having and using a Complete recovery kit is such a good idea – the straps and shackles make it easy to anchor your vehicle and give you more purchase to really make the most of your winch to get your mate out!

There’s another situation that can occur where rather than needing to use your electric winch to pull another vehicle out of trouble or up a tough section of track, there’s the chance that you might have to lower a vehicle down a steep section. It’s in this situation that you need a very solid braking system on your winch and this is where the Domin8r Xtreme comes in! The Domin8r Xtreme has the same 7.2Hp motor and 218:1 gear reduction ratio as the Domin8r X, but it also has a redesigned braking system that sees the actual brake friction surface relocated from the inside of the rope drum and instead it is positioned outwards towards the gearbox end of the winch where it can much more effectively dissipate heat. The other benefit of relocating the brake is that it allows a much larger braking surface for much stronger braking force and the ability to use the brake longer without brake fade. In this case it’s still important to anchor your vehicle securely, because you could potentially be the only thing that’s slowing the descent of another vehicle – say for example it has a damaged brake line and needs to be lowered to a safe spot. Use the winch for short periods of time to prevent the vehicle being lowered from building up too much momentum and becoming unstable or safe and secondly to allow the brake to cool in between use of the winch. Most electric winches use a ratcheting brake mechanism that means it doesn’t grab while winching in, but it is constantly dragging while the powered winch is spooling out in readiness to prevent the vehicle rolling backwards. When you’re winching out to lower a vehicle down, the brake is rubbing the whole time, which means as soon as you left off the switch, the winch (and the vehicle) will come to a stop safely, but it means the winch is building up a lot of heat!

The third and final way you can use a winch to recover another vehicle relates to your own trailer! If you’re towing a trailer and can’t tow it through a tough section of the track you can always use you’re a powerful 4WD winch to pull both your vehicle and the trailer out of trouble. However, if pulling from the from is going to cause damage, whether it’s due to the layout of the track or the position of the trailer then you’re also able to make use of a winch block, like the one found in a recovery kit. By positioning the pulley in front and off to the side of your vehicle you can redirect the pulling force of the recovery winch to the side of the trailer and move it across the track. This can help position the trailer better for the upcoming drive or pull it out of deep ruts that are going to force it along an unsafe route. You can even remove the spare tyre from the trailer and position it as a pivot point, run the synthetic winch rope over the tyre and lift the trailer as you’re winching which can make a tough situation much simpler to get out of. There are even some cases where you might have to unhitch the trailer and use your 12V winch to pull just the trailer itself. Again the spare tyre can make a huge difference here, propping the draw bar up and preventing the front of the trailer from ploughing into the track. It might be a last resort, but it’s a good skill to have in the back of your mind for those recoveries when nothing else will work. Sometimes you only need your winch to move the trailer half a metre or so to make the biggest difference in turning a difficult and dangerous recovery into a simple and safe one.