Any one tried the Bushranger Recovery Tracks

Well they look ok, but I would also like to hear from someone who has used them.

Wato

I had them and didn't find them to be any use at all.

When I tried them on mud, I found the wheels just dragged the tracks and spat them out, not actually resulting in any traction. I went out and replaced them with the MaxTrax instead. Well worth the extra money in my opinion. If you decide to get the Bushranger ones anyway, I'd be happy to sell you mine!

Alan

I use the Maxtrax – in soft sand you can stab them under the wheels without a lot of digging or jacking. From the Bushranger website it appears that you will need to dig and jack a fair bit to get theirs under the wheels.

Thanks all. I have my answer. As I said above you cannot muck around with recovery gear when on your own.

Phil

At 75c a pop, have you considered using the hessian sample bags used by prospectors. They're about 600 x 280mm and you simply half fill them with sand and place them in front of your tyres with a view to getting the vehicle up on top of them for a fresh start. Same principal as the max track and only requires a little bit of effort with the shovel and saves you hundreds of your hard earned! Light, cheap and take up very little room.

Cheers Mick

Not the best of photos but you can see the bags being readied for use here
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We bought a set of Gratemates in preference to MaxTrax. They do a similar job. The Gratemates are heavier, longer and will bridge a gutter.

Here they are on the roof:

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We had the opportunity to use both MaxTrax and Gratemates assisting in the recovery of a couple's Toyota on the Ernest Giles Track. The driver had driven around a abandoned bogged Patrol in a puddle by going onto the grass only to find he had now driven into a bottomless bog. They then winched up to the only tree dragging themselves another 5 to 6 metres into trouble:

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They had been trying to get out for about 4 hours when a recovery company from Alice arrived to get the Patrol. The Alice team had the patrol back on firm ground by the time we rolled up. He was then looking at the Toyota debating whether it was recoverable and agreed to try when we offered to assist and add our recovery gear to his. The Toyota was then sitting on its chassis rails. The owners were trying to jack it up with a high lift and put brush and branches under the wheels but the jack could not break the suction.

The contractor didn't charge for helping on the understanding that we couldn't guarantee getting them out, that they would clean our equipment and replace anything that was damaged during the recovery.

We set up for the extraction with the recovery company's winch to the Toyota and the already recovered patrol chained to the back to help stop the winch vehicle sliding into the slop:

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We then used the MaxTrax and Gratemates to form a ramp then a road base to winch the Toyota up onto and back to firmer ground:

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We couldn't get a straight pull as there was nowhere firm behind the bogged 4by and nothing to hook a snatch block to.

The vehicle slid for about 4 metes before finally popping up onto the tracks. The difference between the Gratemates and MaxTrax became clear here. The Maxtrax were pulled down into the mud and finding them was hard. (He was still looking for the last one after his partner had cleaned our gear and we were ready to leave):

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The Gratemates did not drop as far into the mud and were much easier to find but were very heavy when being moved after they filled with mud:

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It took 3 hours but we finally pulled it out:

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This was the first time I had used the Gratemates and I was impressed with the result. The Toyota's tires gripped on them better than the MaxTrax when covered in mud. I have since used them recovering a Patrol bogged in sand and the results were similar to MaxTrax.

In summary, they do a similar job to the MaxTrax, are cheaper but can bridge a gutter which MaxTrax cannot.

I'm happy with them.

Cheers

Pete