i have never damaged anyone's vehicles in a recovery and i have done a lot of recovery's, i have however had my equipment and vehicle damaged which of course the a-holes never offer to help pay for. this has been caused when i have asked the people to get in there vehicle and use there drive wheels to assist the recovery. normally its them just running over the strap there by damaging it. I had one instance where after i got them back on the road they kept driving when the strap ran out it pulled there car right into my truck. I got there insurance information and there insurance company paid me.

to avoid damage to a vehicle when recovering never try to ****** a vehicle at anything above 1-2 mph, in my ford i normally use idle speed in 1st gear in 4 low if i have to ******. if your truck weighs 7000lbs there is a lot of force when you reach the end of the strap even if your your barely moving, i always try a straight pull first, where i ease all the slack out of the strap and then pull, if that does not work. i will try a few attempts try a crawling ******, if that does not work you need to dig more snow, i always carry a standard snow shovel as well as a round nose dirt shovel and ax for really hard packed stuff. it is good to have that stuff around to in case you yourself end up in a ditch with no one else around you can probably get yourself out. to help protect your property avoid asking them to get in there vehicle and put it in drive or reverse or what not to help get it out, just have them leave the engine off with it in neutral. if its necessary to the recovery to ask them to operate there vehicle to assist in the recovery make sure you very clearly explain to them what to do, very little to no gas pedal avoid spinning the tires after you start to pull them out make sure they know not to try to let there car drive out keep the strap tight and if you stop they stop.

 

Good technique and good advice

 

Well, dang. I have a "t" hook on a short piece of chain. Never knew what it was!!

 

Looks like I'm not ever pulling anyone out again.

The Michigan laws all deal with EMT style stuff.

The only places I ever pull people out is when they are stuck in icy area's where I dont have to yank them out, just pull them off the ice.
90% of the time I just get out and push.
The last time though. I had to be pulled out.
Stupid 4wd got me stuck.
Well, it was really the open rear and front end. The front tire pulled me into the bank.
We didn't have a good strap, and I was really stuck compared to the minivan which got pulled out.
Luckily it was a PSD just idle me out. Only after breaking the straps we were using 2 times. haha.


When pulling people out. Tell them
Start car and turn wheel what ever way you need to have them turn.
And put in drive and keep foot over the brake.

If its your buddy and they know what they doing, then they should know how much gas to give.
it hard to tell people to just get the tires spinning a bit more. Cause whenever you see people stuck, its always full throttle this. blah blah.

if you really want to recover people, you should use a winch. That's just my personal opinion. there is no jerking, just applied force. Make sure everyone stands clear.
And use the blanket technique like mentioned above. or have the weights for the cable.

If you can, get a rope style with high tensile strenght, they just break and fall. Then you simply let the rope out of the winch and stuff them together and they work like chineese finger trap. and start pulling again.

 

Don't get everyone scared about long J's Steve. If you use them correctly you can use them for every single car truck or suv. I have towed pretty much every kinda non exotic car you can think of and I've used j hooks on all of them. The biggest thing that you have to be careful about is if you aren't winching the car in park then you have to make sure that your j's are not puncturing the cv boots, but that is only if it's not RWD or doesn't have indepented suspension. And as for those t-hook holes on the back of the cars you have to be very careful when whinching on them if the car is really stuck, they WILL wrap them selves into pretzel and it makes for a very long frusterating day. I would stay from t hooks if at all possible because they can very easily shift and break free, I like the mini j hooks the best because they get the best bite on everything, but I only use them if I can use a full size j hook.

 

You mean "can't" right?

 

Ya sorry. I was in a rush typin it on my phone.

 

damn, thats a lot of phone typing.

 

Haha ya but it's FTE so it was worth it lol.

 

well if you wanna go with a winch set up i just bought a smittybuilt 10rxc winch. love it! very impressed! its nice because i have it set up for a reciever hitch. can put it on any truck! set of 20 ft jumper cables and your set to go. plus it comes in handy for loading the gooseneck. as for the sueing i would have them sign that paper.