Thread: Simpson Recovery vehicle

Originally Posted by Bytemrk

Not wrong! Pretty sure Hilux has a 10,000Km service interval...

To get to 98,000Km in 18 months, by rights it should have been serviced every second month .

To have any chance of a warranty claim - they'd want to have good records of those services I'd think.

Yeah, I'm at the dealers about that often with my work Hilux. It has 100,000 on it now, but it is just under 2 years old so not quite as many KM per week as this couple were doing, but close. Mine hasn't been far off road though, but does cop a flogging - company cars go faster you know...

Barney’s truck.

The suspension is solid axles with triangulated or double triangulated four links front and rear. Similar to most "King of the Hammers" trucks in the USA, heaps of other off road competition vehicles, and similar to the rear suspension on an HQ holden sedan.

I would think that if it broke down they would try to fix it in the field enough to drive it back. If that wasnt possible, i would reach for another piece of heavy machinery, maybe a grader or dump truck, etc. Something nice and heavy that with much lowered tyre pressures can crawl tow it over dunes. Worst case scenario something tracked to get it over the worst dunes, or a winch, but its getting tough now.

Definitely fit for purpose.

If I were these guys I would also be running an Recovery Insurance business in conjunction with the actual Recovery Business. Take out our insurance before you leave and pay $xyz and we come and get you for nothing or if you breakdown without our insurance you pay the $300 per hour to get you.

Garry

That requires complex management.

You would want an excess too, otherwise you would get callouts for small things.

Could be quite lucrative though, but not if insurance typically covers most cases?

I drove similar sized ex-army IH 6x6 trucks when I worked on a cattle station deep in the Pilbara years ago. There were amazing, unstoppable beasts.

Feel really sorry for the Hilux couple. Desert breakdowns can be pretty stressful. Was it the hose itself that burst, or did the clamp come loose?

I check clamps, hoses, all cooling parts religiously when in the desert. Some find it annoying but it’s part of the daily routine when I spend a lot of time in remote areas. But you can still be unlucky.

Club 4x4 Insurance should cover that sort of recovery...has anyone needed / called on them in a similar situation? I recently changed my insurance over to them.

This is a typical example of where a low coolant alarm would have saved the owner thousands of dollars.