I've accidentally run a red light and stop signs before and didn't die or kill someone. I think I'm going to start doing it all the time and tell people it's a good thing to do.
Doesn't sound too bright does it?

Look, I've been off-roading for over 35 years and worked as a rigger where your, and your co-workers' lives, depend on having good equipment and knowing how to safely use it. That HF setup is not quality and I would never use it in an off-road recovery situation.
If you want to use it, have at it, but don't come on here bitching when it breaks and takes out someone's windshield or puts someone in the hospital.

Things like this are not the place to cheap out on. Do that with tools if you want, but not with others' safety.

Yes, that's why I said it would probably be ok for pulling a car off the highway over to the shoulder.
The problem with buying it for "light use" is that's not all someone will use it for.
1. Few off-road recovery situations are a static pull where you know the forces involved.
2. Even if you start with a static attempt, it's common (and human nature) to give a yank if a static pull doesn't work.
3. You're now in a kinetic recovery situation where it's nearly impossible to know the forces involved. They can easily reach 30k lb or more.
4. If that first yank doesn't work you back up and get a longer running start, increasing the forces even more.
5. Before you know it you've increased the forces enough that something breaks if you've cheaped out on your equipment.

If you buy it, I promise you, you'll end up using it somewhere you shouldn't.

There's a very good example on youtube of faulty/poor equipment taking out a Defender's rear window. If I can find it I'll post the link.

 

Found it, plus another that should make you think about the advisability of using recovery gear that isn't up to the task.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEtuO-Mh9Lg
Think about what would have happened if someone had been sitting in the back of that Defender, or it was facing the other way and that had been the windscreen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8lMxYnGIrw

 

The danger is that when it breaks, the stored energy in the cabefrom the weight being pulled is going to be released in the form of a flying mass of metal that will hit God knows who or what. It will definitely cause damage & poses a serious possibility of killing someone.

 

So the lesson here guys is dont get stuck!!

 

If it were only that easy. Haven't you noticed my sig?
The lesson is really, don't cheap out on recovery gear, and don't let idiots try to recover you. LOL

 

I know all to well that you cannot avoid getting stuck sometimes.
And I agree with you that recovery gear is not a place to save money.

 

we use recovery straps with the loop in each end... remove your hitch from the reciever, insert the loop into the tow package, slip the lock pin into the reciever and through the loop of the strap and out the other side.... we have never had a pin fail or come out... the towing package on your vehicle is likely to break first

 

Yeah, that (using just the hitch pin) works in a pinch, pun intended.
I know people who used that method and have the pins bend and everything get wedged in the receiver tube. Not pleasant.

 

If you're going to use cheap HF recovery equipment at least use it with a chain and not a strap.

btw there are other vids on youtube of D-rings coming thru the windshield on 4x4s besides rovers.

 

I'm pretty sure of rule of good sense when doing a recovery was broken in that second video. I would have had 2 trucks hooked up pulling together before I let someone keep jerking like that, especially with the strap only looped over the trailer ball.

I guess the good old days of putting a blanket or jacket or something with weight over the cable or strap so it goes to the ground in case it breaks are gone.