Overall a great summary and recommendations. I don't personally own Maxtrax as I have a set of bridging ladders and a set of GoTreads. The combined cost was less than 4 Maxtrax with greater capability, but significantly more bulk and weight. It really is hard to be a set of Maxtrax.
Another observation is that if you really just want to roll with the bare minimum then a set of Maxtrax, a jack and shovel will get people out of the vast majority of problems.
On the inflator side, I've become a big fan of the Milwaukee 12V inflator. It's compact, airs up even big tires quickly, and I can charge the battery easily via the 110V inverter that came standard on my FJ. I especially like being able to screw it onto the valve stem, set a target pressure, then just walk away and let it do its work. It's a really easy way to get precision tire pressure. If like me you're already on that tool system it might be a good option for folks. It even passed the AvE tear-down and was shown to have pretty skookum internals.
Pairs nicely with their 18V impact gun for zipping off lug nuts and there is a combo 12V/18V charger that keeps the batteries topped off and ready to go.
Overall a great summary and recommendations. I don't personally own Maxtrax as I have a set of bridging ladders and a set of GoTreads. The combined cost was less than 4 Maxtrax with greater capability, but significantly more bulk and weight. It really is hard to be a set of Maxtrax.
For a bottle jack, I have seen, read, and heard multiple recommendations for Safe Jack. My OEM Lexus bottle jack is pretty good so I haven't upgraded to a Safe Jack system yet, but I do also have the ARB X-Jack. Between the two I should be covered. Jonathan Hanson recently wrote a great article on jacks over on his site (https://www.exploringoverland.com/overland-tech-travel/2021/11/14/a-guide-to-recovery-jacks-for-the-beginner-or-procrastinator).
Another observation is that if you really just want to roll with the bare minimum then a set of Maxtrax, a jack and shovel will get people out of the vast majority of problems.
This is a really helpful guide. Thanks for putting this together!
Thanks Wes, this is great.
On the inflator side, I've become a big fan of the Milwaukee 12V inflator. It's compact, airs up even big tires quickly, and I can charge the battery easily via the 110V inverter that came standard on my FJ. I especially like being able to screw it onto the valve stem, set a target pressure, then just walk away and let it do its work. It's a really easy way to get precision tire pressure. If like me you're already on that tool system it might be a good option for folks. It even passed the AvE tear-down and was shown to have pretty skookum internals.
Pairs nicely with their 18V impact gun for zipping off lug nuts and there is a combo 12V/18V charger that keeps the batteries topped off and ready to go.