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Recommend me a Tow Rope


SiWhite

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It struck me recently that I have nothing for pulling other cars about with - other than tree strops. These are too short and have zero give - not ideal as they threaten to pull recovery points out of normal euroboxes!

I'm looking for a good long (maybe 4-5 metres) tow rope to be used purely for towing both on road and along easy byways - no recoveries at all. Hopefully something small and light that can live in the 90, and relatively cheap!

Thanks in advance for the help.

Simon

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I use 24mm three strand white nylon with old 2 inch fabric fire hose for the eye protection, not hard to learn to splice eyes properly. Got some give/twang for off road recovery (my main use) but this also makes it a good tow rope for on road use, if the rope goes slack and then takes up with a jerk, a dead rope is horrible, nylon is much nicer. If you don't need a 12 tonne breaking strain of 24mm, use some thinner stuff - 18mm or 20mm - I also have a bit of that, takes up less space but any nylon rope is easy to stow. Any decent chandlery will have a range of three strand white nylon from 10mm to 24mm and possibly bigger so you can choose what you need and how long you want it. I don't know how much it costs but likely to be a couple of quid a metre I would think, we sell 24mm here for tow ropes and I think it is about £3 a metre but that includes freight etc to get it here.

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i agree with bm i have a 24mm 3 strand nylon rope i think its 8 metre it was about 35 quid there is several on ebay already made complete with shackles like you said a strop takes no prisoners but you can feel the nylon start to stretch as it takes the weight what do you carry in your traffic cars around here thay seem to use that multi coloured bungee for towing cars off the carriageway,chris.

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For your intended usage why not get a tow strap from machine mart, rolled up it takes up little space and its more than up to the job of occasional recovery of euroboxes, only cheap too

Clicky

Mike

That strap is a single polyester webbing designed for lifting. It is rated at 5000kg and I strongly suspect that is a new breaking strength so put in standard safety factor the WLL would be about 750kg.

If you want a tow rope with some give use nylon. There are cheap (and nasty) polypropylene so called tow ropes in the motorist shops. A review on one stated

"As with the other review, bought the product today, used it to tow a Rover 25, well within the two ton guideline, rope broke away from the eye within two miles, had to be tied back on. Do not bother with this product."

HTH

Brendan

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I use a kinetic rope as long as you don't hare off like a fool it is plenty strong enough and certainly doesn't have any harsh jerkiness to it.T

he kinetic is also great to lower somebody down a bank with your winch it smooths off any harshness on the winch brake.

I am not sure of its length, could be a bit too long.

It could be a little bulky to keep permanently in the car.

As with all ropes it should be checked for damage before use I know of and have heard of several accidents with kinetic ropes.

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Personally I would use a pole for on road use, much safer and you don't get a snapping action. Not only that but if you are recovering some random lone person, you don't need to worry about them rear-ending your 90 when they find their brakes don't work. Offroad, bit of rope as suggested.

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Used carefully, I've managed successful road recoveries with a KERR. The "towee" doesn't need as much skill to keep the rope tight and there's some 'give' for give-ways etc. Obviously if you back up for a runup then you're going to be picking Eurobox tow point out of your back door but as Rob says, if you're sensible then it works fine.

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I didn't know that... I was only going from personal experience when I have used that same strap for recovering/towing (not offroad) for years countless times, inc towing quite large cars like defenders etc and never had a problem with it, I use a pole now and obviously have a decent nylon rope for off road

Just out of interest I thought the safety rating went the other way, ie if it said 5000 it would have been tested to 2.5x that?

Mike

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Mike the normal ratio of WLL to Break strength is 7:1

If that strap had a WLL of 5000kg it would mean break strength of 35 tonnes.

To get that sort of WLL or strength then you would require a doubled polyester strap of 150mm+ width

Unfortunately people use different ways of rating straps etc (just like car wiring/relays etc) so it can be very confusing.

One of the motorist shops sells 'tow ropes' rated at being able to tow a 2,000 kg/4,000 kg vehicle. No mention of WLL or strength. On level tarmac that would take a force of max 400 kg. That means very thin nylon rope could pull a vehicle on level tarmac, but there would be no safety factor!

HTH

Brendan

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I was under the impression that safety factor for pulling (as opposed to lifting) was meant to be 2x and the safety factor for lifting was 5x or 7x (depending on who you listen to)

If it is not, then every winch cable fitted to every commonly sold winch is under-rated...

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The lifting industry is more highly regulated via the HSE and standard safety factor is 7:1

The 4x4 leisure industry is very lightly regulated in comparison.

Towing straps (i.e. polyester) from most of the reputable 4x4 dealers will be rated at 2 tonnes with a safety factor of 7:1 or a break strength of 14 tonnes.

ARB nylon recovery straps are rated at 8,000 or 11,000 kg but does not have a WLL/safety factor or break strength quoted

Did a quick search on google but could not find a safety factor for towing straps.

Did find a reference to mandatory guidelines on snatch straps by the Queensland Government which can be found HERE The minimum break strength of a nylon recovery strap should be 2-3 times the GVM of vehicles involved.

HTH

Brendan

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Personally I would use a pole for on road use, much safer and you don't get a snapping action. Not only that but if you are recovering some random lone person, you don't need to worry about them rear-ending your 90 when they find their brakes don't work. Offroad, bit of rope as suggested.

Having used one a pole with inbuilt spring, they are very nice for towing, but all the cheap ones I've seen are underrated for land rovers and a friends one just buckled under breaking and subsequent acceleration finally ripped it apart.

I have one of the cheap tow ropes with a hook on them (sort you get from halfords etc) which is handy for emergencies such as towing a conked out car from the middle of a cross roads or for towing cars about the yard at home (much more forgiving than a length of chain), but I would use something more substantial for towing longer distances on public highway, after all you never know when you will next need to tow something a bit bigger like a land rover. Having a hook on the tow rope is nice as you don't have to go hunting for a shackle and given that shackles aren't meant be done up tight, I would trust shackles for long distance towing either.

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Only problem is that ebay rope is too long for legal use on the public highway as it exceeds 4.5m! Double it up and at 2.5m it will be a bit close.

Brendan

Well if your local plod pulls you up for having a tow rope that's 500mm to long I think I would be saying "you should be out catching proper criminals officer !" :D

Gary

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The lifting industry is more highly regulated via the HSE and standard safety factor is 7:1

The 4x4 leisure industry is very lightly regulated in comparison.

Towing straps (i.e. polyester) from most of the reputable 4x4 dealers will be rated at 2 tonnes with a safety factor of 7:1 or a break strength of 14 tonnes.

ARB nylon recovery straps are rated at 8,000 or 11,000 kg but does not have a WLL/safety factor or break strength quoted

Did a quick search on google but could not find a safety factor for towing straps.

Did find a reference to mandatory guidelines on snatch straps by the Queensland Government which can be found HERE The minimum break strength of a nylon recovery strap should be 2-3 times the GVM of vehicles involved.

HTH

Brendan

I always understood that all pulling gear should have a FOS of two?

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Given that the ARB recovery strap is made of nylon and having seen one I would think the 8000kg is probably the breaking strain - both that and nylon rope are the same material, and 24mm nylon has a breaking strain of 12000kg so a wider but much thinner strap would probably be less than that?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dingocroft?

Yeah, dingo's didn't have much.

As an update I did find one on ebay. It was a 24mm 3 strand Nylon, 4m long with protected eyes and bow shackles for £30.

The firm was Nationwide splicing and rope servicesand they included courier delivery and was actually a good seller.

I'm not affiliated but I found their service very good. They let me know when there was a delay as their delivery truck slid about but well worth an enquiry of you want any ropes.

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