With spring well and truly upon us, I headed out with my dad and granddad to plan the new generation of apple trees in our aging orchard. On our way across the fields, we got stuck in a deep mud patch, after it emerged one of the main drains had become blocked over the winter.
The vehicle in question wasn’t my Isuzu D-Max long termer, but my dad’s Mitsubishi L200. In fairness to the L200, it was only sporting standard road tyres and it happened to land in the middle of the muddiest spot.
After a long, and slippery, walk back to the farm, I returned with my trusty D-Max long termer. Armed with a 3.5 tonne towing capacity, 255mm wide Pirelli Scorpion tyres, Traction Control and a low range, four-wheel drive mode, pulling the stranded L200 out should be a piece of cake.
Coupled up
With the 30mm nylon rope tied round the tow bar on the L200 and a load bearing part of the D-Max chassis, the attempt to free the L200 from 250mm of mud began.
I started by easing forward slowly to get the rope taut, I tooted the horn to let him know we’re ready to go. Towing is effortless in an automatic, as there’s no clutch control, and so all I had to do was apply a small, but constant, amount of accelerator.
We stuttered at first, but once the traction control kicked in, we established grip and pushed forward slowly. Meanwhile, I could hear my dad going hell-for-leather behind me as he attempted to reverse out of the bog and regain what little off-road credibility he had left.
Success!
Slowly but surely, we managed to wrestle out of the mud pit. I could feel at times, the wheels losing grip, but the traction control would slow the wheels down, re-establish grip and power up again, all in an instant.
All in all, it was a good day for the D-Max. Not only did it recover our farm pickup, it provided the logistics for rejuvenation of our orchard. We just have to wait six months until the cider, I mean, apple trees are in fruition.
