Do I really need… part 8 – Recovery Tracks

The advent of recovery tracks has been one of the biggest innovations in 4WD’ing around the world in the last few decades. These little strips of plastic teeth have helped untold amounts of people get out of bogs, over holes and out of sticky situations in everything from sand, to rocks, to dirt, to clay.

Recovery tracks work on a simple principle. They let you get traction by your tyres gripping the nodes, they raise up the ground so that you can get unstuck from anything that’s holding you in, and they give a greater footprint for downward forces so you can move across whatever terrain it is a lot easier.

There are some brands that are better than others and that’s really down to better quality material used, more research and development and better customer service. While we aren’t here to push any brand over another, in general you do get what you pay for. Even with this, you may not need the best out there. If you’re only doing a few local tracks on the weekend then a cheaper set of tracks will be enough to keep you out of trouble. The main advantage of the cheaper ones is that if they break, it’s not as bad as breaking one of the more expensive ones.

So, as a $WD’er, do you really need recovery tracks? If you’re going to go anywhere offroad, then yes, you need at least one pair. If you want to be safe get two pairs so you’ve got one fore each wheel, or more spares for when you need to build things up.