If you head out 4WDing often, you should definitely carry a recovery kit with you. For the uninitiated, recovery kits contain all the gear you need to get a vehicle unbogged from the most common scenarios out in the bush or on the beach. A quality 4×4 recovery kit doesn’t have to cost the earth, and it doesn’t need to be massive either. In fact, if you have just a few basic bits of gear in your recovery kit then you’ll be geared up to handle the most typical 4×4 recoveries that you’ll come across. Even if you don’t plan on getting bogged or driving challenging tracks yourself, it’s like the old boy scout motto – always be prepared!

Here’s a list of what to look for in a 4×4 recovery kit, exactly like the Hercules Essential Recovery Kit or the Hercules Complete Recovery Kit available from 4WD Supacentre.

1.SNATCH STRAP
A snatch strap will be your best mate out in the bush! Snatch straps are literally like heavy-duty rubber bands. They have a certain amount of stretch built into them during their manufacturing stage, which allows the strap to stretch during a snatch recovery. When the towing vehicle takes off, the strap stretches and then recoils, and as it recoils the energy stored within it has the ability to pop the bogged vehicle free. In a 4×4 recovery kit, make sure your snatch strap is rated to 8000kg and you will easily be able to recover most of yours and your friends 4WD when you are offroad.

2. RATED SHACKLES
Shackles are how you attach your strap to your vehicle’s rated recovery points. It’s vitally important that the shackles you use in 4×4 recoveries are rated to 4.7t so that they can withstand the forces involved in a winching or snatching recovery scenario. Ideally you should look for a 4×4 recovery kit that comes with two rated 4.7t bow shackles as these are the most common types of shackles and are engineered to work properly in a 4WD recovery.

3.TREE TRUNK PROTECTOR
Whether you have a winch or not, a rated tree trunk protector is such a great piece of equipment that you should look for in a 4wd recovery kit. You should never wrap a winch rope – even synthetic winch rope – around a tree because it will ring-bark the tree and kill it. Instead, use a tree trunk protector to evenly distribute the load around the tree and ensure you don’t do any permanent damage to it. Tree trunk protectors can be used for other recovery scenarios too, such as providing an anchor point from your towbar pin for another person’s winch.

4.WINCH EXTENSION STRAP
4WD recoveries aren’t always straightforward, so your 4×4 recovery kit should be equipped with a winch extension strap to ensure you can deal with whatever scenario comes up! A winch extension strap can be used to extend the reach of your synthetic winch rope, or your snatch strap if you can’t get a towing vehicle close enough to the bogged vehicle. At 20m long, the winch extension strap in each of the Hercules recovery kits is perfect for almost any recovery situation.

5.SNATCH BLOCK

Snatch blocks are amazing bits of gear, because they use mechanical advantage to effectively double the power of your winch! Whether you’ve got the Grande Mk3 12,000lb winch, the famous Domin8rX winch or any other, a snatch block can be used to either change the direction of the winch recovery, or to double the winch hook back around to your own vehicle and give you the power to pull yourself through just about any boghole. Definitely an important part of any recovery kit!

6.DAMPENER

It doesn’t matter where you get your recovery gear – by its very nature, recovery gear is a wearing item that over time will need replacing. If your snatch strap, winch extension strap or synthetic winch rope have seen better days after being dragged through mud, there’s a chance they will not have as much strength as they once did. Even if your recovery gear is brand new, it’s excellent practice to use a Winch Dampener over your strap or synthetic winch rope. If something does break or let go, the dampener will catch it before it can cause damage to life or limb. The Hercules Complete Recovery Kit comes with its own dampener, and the really cool thing about the Hercules Essential Recovery Kit is the bag itself is a dampener!