Isuzu MU-X build: TAG XR recovery bar fitted

As responsible four-wheel drivers, we all know about rated recovery points on our vehicles and the importance of them for safe vehicle recoveries when we inevitably get stuck. The reason we need them from the aftermarket is that very few OE vehicle manufacturers equip their new vehicles with loops or hooks designed for such loads and forces.

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This is why there is such an extensive range of recovery points available from the aftermarket. You know the ones that are usually brightly-coloured, poking out from under the front bumper where they are ready to accept your winch hook or snatch strap in order to yank the vehicle out of trouble.

These recovery points are mainly available only for the front of vehicles; why not for the back? Isn’t the back of the vehicle that is pulling the stuck vehicle out, usually where you will attach the tow or snatch strap? Yes it is, and in most cases the user will attach the strap to the tow hitch, either via a specific recovery hitch, or by using the hitch pin inside the square section of the receiver.

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Never loop a strap or rope over a tow ball for vehicle recovery. Tow balls are not made to take the sort of loads generated in a snatch recovery and when they break off under load, they become a potentially deadly missile, usually heading straight back toward the stuck car at ballistic speed.

The loads generated by a snatch strap can far exceed those of towing any trailer you will ever legally haul behind a regular 4x4 vehicle. Remember, this is why you are using a strap rated to 8000kg or more to pull out your 2900kg car. So it stands to reason that where you attach your recovery straps to the rear of your vehicle, should be designed and engineered to cope with such loads, just like the recovery points you fit to the front of your vehicle are.

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Hence the introduction of recovery rear bars; an evolution of towbars but engineered to include attachment points that are rated to cope with the loads of a snatch recovery and also spread that load across the width of the bar and not just on the central point at the hitch receiver. This style of recovery bar first saw the light of day on the back of 4x4 utes, and particularly those that are fitted with trays or service bodies and don’t have a standard rear bumper.

Queensland’s TAG Towbars & Accessories has been designing and manufacturing its extensive range of towbars in Australia for more than 35 years, and it was only a couple of years ago when we started to see its then-new XR (Extreme Recovery) towbars adorning the backs of some of our feature cars.

The first one we saw was on the back of a chopped and stretched Y62 Patrol so it was a truly custom vehicle, but until now, we’d never seen a recovery bar fitted to the back of a 4x4 wagon. So we threw the TAG team a challenge with our MU-X project car.

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Space invaders

The back of a wagon presents a few more challenges to the designers of the bar than that of a tray-back ute as it has a more stylised rear bumper that you want to retain as much of as possible. There’s also the fact that most of the 4x4 wagons are burdened with third-row seating which more often than not fold in to the floor of the rear space in the wagon. This encroaches on the available space under the car where you want to put your tow bar, long-range fuel tank, and the spare wheel is usually under there as well.

So 7-seat wagons present a perfect storm of limited space to work within. To the team at TAG (TAG-team) this presented them with an engineering version of Tetris and it was a challenge they were certainly up for.

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The TAG Towbars crew work the new XR bar in to place

To meet the greater demands of vehicle recovery, the XR bars are made heavier-duty than a regular tow bar. Heavier-duty than even TAG’s own HD tow bars; and they are not just a TAG HD tow bar with recovery points at each end. For the MU-X, the XR’s side plates that mate the cross member to the chassis are 12mm thick instead of 10mm on a HD bar, and they incorporate the machined recovery points, each rated to 4000kg WLL (Working Load Limit).

The recovery attachment points protrude through slots neatly cut in to the factory plastic bumper and are finished off neatly with pinch weld.

You can see straight away that having the recovery points at the ends like this put them directly in line with the chassis rails and not at a point in-between them, so that any force pulls directly back on the strength of the rails.

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The available space under the back of the MU-X did pose a few problems and some yet to be resolved. For a start, the team used a 65 x 65mm cross member instead of the usual 75 x 75mm RHS on the HD bars. This smaller size allows it to fit while still retaining a 3500kg towing rating to match the vehicle’s tow capacity.

When it came to fitting the XR bar under our MU-X, the first one they were able to access, they found that it interfered with the rear parking sensors which protrude a fair way back behind the plastic bumper. This meant moving the bar more forward in the vehicle which again threw up further challenges, especially as our car is fitted with taller than standard tyres.

We went up a size in tyre for our build going from the MU-X LS-M’s standard 255/65R17 (764mm diameter) to a 265/70R17 Maxxis RAZR AT which Maxxis quotes has an 808mm diameter. It’s a modest and legal size upgrade to give a bit more sidewall and a tad more ground clearance and while it fits easily within the wheel arches, it gets tight for the spare wheel and tyre.

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A TAG recovery bar on the MU-X wagon is a first

With the XR bar needing to move forward under the car, this in turn pushed the spare tyre to the point where it was rubbing against the Panhard rod that locates the rear differential. The only solution to allow us to safely drive the car was to deflate the spare and be sure we always have our compressor on board should we need to reinflate and use the spare.

Personally, I would have been prepared to sacrifice the rear parking sensors if it would grant us the required space as the MU-X does have a useful rear-view camera for when you are reversing. TAG is working on other solutions looking at different sized cross members and designs.

One of the advantages of designing and manufacturing your products locally in Australia is that for TAG to take another look at the XR product for the MU-X, it’s all done in-house and there’s no toing and froing with overseas manufacturers. Watch this space for updates!

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Some panel work was needed to fit the TAG XR bar

Of course, it you are happily running the standard 31-inch tyre then this won’t be an issue for you, and the TAG XR will be the perfect towing and recovery bar solution for you.

I have to admit that I was concerned about how the XR bar would look on the back of a wagon and how much of the rear plastic bumper would have to be cut away, but I’m pleasantly surprised and impressed with the look of finished product. The bar itself is nicely finished in dark powder-coating to protect it against the elements. The eyelets in the recovery points have bevelled edges, so they’re not too harsh on your soft shackles, although we’d still recommend soft shackles with a protective sleeve or coating if you’re not using steel shackles.

On a tray-back ute application, the mounts for the trailer plugs are on top of the XR bar, but to put them up that high behind the bumper of a wagon would make them hard to access. On our MU-X, the trailer plug mounts on the OE bumper where it’s easy to get to.

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The XR bar fitment blends in nicely with the MU-X rear

The TAG XR bar comes with a standard 50mm hitch and ball, while TAG has a huge selection of drop-hitches and other towing accessories should your set-up need something different. All TAG towbars come with a limited lifetime warranty.

The TAG Extreme Recovery XR bar for the MU-X retails for $964 for the bar only. This compares to a TAG HD tow bar that costs $790 RRP. This is the first XR bar for a wagon but expect to see more soon for popular models like Land Cruiser 300, Patrol and Prado. TAG Towbars has stockists and fitters all across Australia, and you can find you’re nearest one by visiting the website at: www.tagtowbars.com.au

RATED

Available from:
www.tagtowbars.com.au
RRP: $964 TAG Extreme Recovery XR bar (sans fitment)
What we say: Australian-made TAG towbars come with a limited lifetime warranty.