As we mentioned in our wheels, any mods to the Pajero seem to be very expensive.

At first, we weren’t going to install a bullbar, but as we spent more time investigating places to go, the more likely it seemed that we were going to leave the tarmac and do some off-roading.  So the more likely it was that we were going to need some good recovery gear – as we’ll be travelling by ourselves we can’t rely on others to get us out of a jam.

We decided that it was better to spend the money now and kit ourselves out rather than having to miss out on a possibly once-in-a-lifetime chance of visiting some remote location.

Craig started looking at products and prices for bullbars, winches and recovery equipment.

 

TJM – These guys were really friendly and helpful.  Great customer service but unfortunately they didn’t do a bullbar that is compatible with the Paj.

 

ARB – We found the staff at the branch we went to rude and unhelpful.  When we were looking for the snorkel they provided us with a quote for the wrong car and acted like our being in the shop was an inconvenience.  The only bullbar that is compatible with our Paj was their top of the range model.

 

MCC – These guys were neither particularly rude, nor particularly helpful.  But their price was almost half of what ARB wanted.

 

Looking at some of the 4X4 online forums, the MCC product is generally dismissed as inferior quality. We just hope that is just opinion and could just be the result of TJM & ARB marketing departments trashing the product instead of competing with their lower prices. At the end of the day price was our deciding factor. We bought the winch and bullbar as insurance – hopefully we won’t need to use them, so will never need to find out if they’re any good.

Craig also spoke to the above suppliers about winches. We have a tight budget so were considering doing without when an email alert for a sale on winches from an online store came though. We jumped on the sale and before we’d even ordered the bullbar, the winch had already been delivered.

The winch is a Tigers 11 brand. Rated to 12,000 pounds with dyneema rope, which is lighter than the traditional steel cable.

 

 

Continuing the money saving theme Craig has sourced the individual items of our recovery gear kit from different suppliers, saving over a hundred bucks rather than buying a pre-assembled kit.

• 2 x snatch straps
• 2 x 4.7 ton shackles
• Tree protector
• Winch block
• Winch extender strap
• Hitch receiver
• Winch dampener
• Equaliser strap

 

We went ahead and ordered the MCC bullbar and had them fit the winch too.  The front of the car dropped by about 2cm with the extra weight. We had suspected that this may happen so have arranged for more heavy duty springs for the front of the car to be installed this week.  This four wheel drive preparation is a costly business!  Fortunately we’re just about done now.