Thar, Jimny and Fortuner owners keep asking where a snatch strap can be hooked: what ARB and the 4x4 forums say

Every trail season the same question comes back on the off-road forums. The vehicle is axle-deep, a second 4x4 has arrived, and somebody has to decide where to clip the strap. The tow ball on the hitch is the easiest thing to reach. That is exactly the thing the recovery gear industry says you must never use.

What owners are asking, and where

We opened two threads on this. On Expedition Portal, a snatch strap recovery thread that ran from 4 to 9 January 2014 drew 15 replies, and the advice there was to build up gently rather than take a run at it, to use the vehicles' recovery points and to rig a bridle so the load spreads across both sides of the chassis instead of hanging off one eye. One contributor in that thread described a rope eye dropped over a ball hitch, after which the hitch became, in his words, a "missile" that went past the driver.

An Overland Bound thread headed as a public service announcement that tow balls are not recovery points ran from 31 January to 31 May 2019 and drew 20 replies. The point members kept making there is the difference between towing, which is a steady pull, and recovery, which is a shock load. Suggestions in that thread included pulling the ball off and using the hitch pin in double shear, or fitting frame-mounted points made for dynamic loads. Search results show several more threads on the same question on the South African 4x4 Community forum, and Team-BHP's long-running recovery and salvage thread, which would not open for us, shows in search results an owner warning that a merely welded tow point is not good enough for a snatch pull.

The gear maker's side

ARB, which makes recovery gear and sells it in India through 4x4 accessory dealers, puts it in one line on its own learning pages: "Do not use a tow ball or tie down point as a recovery point." Its reason is that tow balls are not made of high tensile material, have been known to fail from stress and have "the potential to become lethal missiles". Recovery points must be correctly mounted and rated, and ARB tells owners to check the vehicle manufacturer's handbook for where those points are.

On sizing, ARB says a snatch strap should have a minimum breaking strength of two to three times the vehicle's gross vehicle mass, and it supplies straps in 8,000, 11,000 and 15,000 kg MBS.

For shackles, ARB puts the floor at 3.25 t rated bow shackles for one strap eye, with 4.75 t shackles used where two eyes have to go into the same bow. It also says a recovery damper belongs in the middle third of the strap or winch cable, and that a snatch block can halve the load on a winch.

On the rules side, Australia regulates this gear. The Consumer Goods (Motor Vehicle Recovery Straps) Safety Standard 2017 is a federal instrument whose sections include a warning and information that must be permanently fixed to the strap. We found no Indian equivalent, so a strap bought locally for a Thar, Thar Roxx, Jimny, Gurkha, V-Cross, Fortuner or Hilux may carry no rating or warning at all.

What an owner can do

Read your handbook and work out whether the hooks on your vehicle are rated recovery points or transport tie-downs. Ask the dealer workshop, in writing, for the rating and the part number of any recovery point they fit. Take the gross vehicle mass off the handbook or the VIN plate and buy a strap and shackles rated against that figure, with the rating marked on the webbing. Keep a damper blanket on the strap, keep everyone out of the line of pull, and never use the ball. If a dealer-fitted accessory fails and the dealer stonewalls, escalate to the maker's customer care and then the National Consumer Helpline on 1915.

Thar and Jimny owners in the club: does your vehicle have a rated recovery point, front and rear, or did you have to add one?

Sources

• ARB, Recovery Techniques and Equipment
• ARB, Getting Started: recovery techniques and equipment
• Overland Bound forum thread: tow balls are not recovery points
• Expedition Portal forum thread: snatch strap recovery
• Federal Register of Legislation, Consumer Goods (Motor Vehicle Recovery Straps) Safety Standard 2017