Sure, life doesn’t depend on it. you can walk away from a vehicle. But I’ve done more than one two-winch recovery and at least one three-winch.
A rig that’s upside down can’t run the motor, so it doesn’t have a ton of winching capabilities but it may be tied off to something. There’s a tree strap and a shackle used up. We had to Recruit another person who has a winch but has no gear and now you are short on gear if you don’t have “extra”
Haha, I feel like I'm defending an argument I'm not attempting to make. So firstly, unless your rig is really custom you're not gonna have the ability to do a two winch recovery on yourself anyway, but for sake of argument where do you draw the line? Do you carry a backup winch in case the mounted one fails? Do you carry a backup engine or trans? What about driveshaft? How many spares do you carry and store? A spare for the spare certainly makes sense right?
I'm not at all making the argument that anyone should not be prepared, and especially if you're out solo in areas of low population density, it's super important to be able to recovery, or at the very least attempt it and be able to signal for help if needed (cell service, radio, etc.)
I think everyone should have a good basic setup, but also be a bit pragmatic for what is needed, vs nice to have, vs what is really overkill. I think for most people, a front mounted winch, a tow strap, a kinetic strap, a tree saver, and 3-4 soft shackles is pretty solid. Toss in a pulley option of some sort and a set of maxx tracks and you've got pretty much everything you need outside of things like spare tire, patch kit, air, etc.
Either way, I'm not trying to discredit anyones experience here, nor tell them how to pack, but the fact that all these recovers involve a "one time we had to use 3 winches" isn't a great argument for carrying around 3 winches all the time if you catch my drift. Once my buddies truck blew a trans, but we don't carry a trans with us. I've had alternators go on previous trucks, but again I don't carry one around. I get there is a difference for being off road vs on, but I think most of the time you can get by with a basic kit is all I'm sayin.
We are on the same page - if the gear is manufactured by a reputable manufacture and it is rated appropriately, and it has all of the requirements you desire - grab it. There are many good choices out there such as AEV, ARB, Warn, etc. I looked for recovery kits by others companies such as Carli or Thuren although I was unable to find any.
Regarding extras - that is a tough call. I would say for 80-90% of recoveries a normal bag is fine. Since I began off-roading in the early 90s there have only been three times where additional winches and gear was necessary. One involved a three-winch pull on a rolled vehicle on Dictum Ridge in the GWNF, another was pulling vehicles forward up a muddy narrow incline, from behind, on the Daniel Boone Backcountry Byway in DBNF, the third was six hours of non-stop winching to recover a Jeep with no front drivetrain from a deep steep ravine in NW PA as a winter storm rolled in which dumped a few feet of snow. Thank God I had a hydraulic winch on that with extra gear. All I can say is when it gets bad, it gets real bad, real fast. I never had too much gear on any of those occasions.
100%. AEV makes some really quality stuff, and the stuff they don't make in house they partner with a lot of top notch companies. I have been seeing the tease of their 5th gen snorkel and can't wait for it!
I agree overall though, most of the time a basic setup is more than enough, the question is how likely are those other times and is the juice worth the squeeze basically.
Also, you joke about Carli and Thuren but I'm still waiting for your breakdown on why AEV suspension is better than them. What's it been, at least 6 months right? I'm ready whenever you are
