- $1,200 Electric winch.
- Versus $80 Manual come-along.
- Does more expensive me more better?
- Let's find out.
- Yes, I think in this case, I think it does.
- I don't know, James.
My forearms are pretty jacked.
- Thank you to eBay motors
for sponsoring this season of HiLow.
All right, Jobe, I'm ready.
- By now y'all know how solid eBay motors is.
Whether you're a long time car enthusiast or
a first time off roader, like me,
there's no better place to buy or sell your parts and cars.
Unlike dealerships who flip car after car eBay is invested
in putting the trust back in the automotive marketplace.
- What are you doing?
- Just testing out this winch that I got off of eBay motors.
- We don't have to do that right?
- Safe to say this sucker works great.
Thanks eBay motors.
- So if you're looking to pull yourself out of
some bad online deals,
click the link in the description below or download the eBay
motors app to start shopping safely and securely today.
Now back to the show.
It's your turn.
- We bought two nearly identical Toyota Tacomas,
and we've been modifying them to be fun daily drivers that
you can take literally anywhere.
- Except for space.
- One Tacoma gets expensive parts and one gets cheap parts.
- Then, we test them to see which components
are worth spending your hard earned dollar on.
- Now there's all sorts of recovery gear
to help get your off-roader out of a jam.
But by far, the most popular is the winch.
They look sick, and if you're in a pickle,
they can be lifesaver.
- But what if you can't afford a fancy winch?
Couldn't some simple mechanical advantage and a healthy dose
of elbow grease be enough to get the job done I ask?
- Probably not, probably not.
Well to find out, Hi truck is getting this worn
9,000 pound electric winch,
which costs $1200.
- Low truck on the other hand is getting
this manual come-along, which comes to $80.
- Right off the bat I think they did you dirty, man.
Wow. Oh dude, Nolan you're stuck?
Gonna strap you on the winch, pull you right on out.
Can't believe he stuck again, I mean, I can.
- One hand
- I want to point out just right off the bat that the term
come-along is way too cute to be useful.
Like this thing was invented in a time where they name
things like a come-along.
Come-along, oh, what's it do?
makes the rail cars come along.
Whoa, Chrome.
- Yeah, dude, there it is.
Initial impressions off the bat.
Do we think more expensive means more better?
- 100 percent absolutely, no question.
- Why is that?
- Convenience, safety ease of use, peace of mind.
- I will concede to all those, you are correct,
but, how often realistically do you think
you're going to have to,
you're going to run out of so many options that you
have to resort to the winch.
Probably once - every day
in that case, if we get stuck, bust out to come-along.
So I think we'll be just fine.
- I think you're going to die.
- You're gonna-
- We're going to get this thing installed and then head back
to our super secret test site where we will deliberately
get both trucks stuck,
and find out if more expensive does really mean more better.
So the main focus of this video is on our winch,
but if you get stuck,
sometimes you need a whole lot more than
a winch to get unstuck.
So we went a little ham, we got traction bars,
we got a first aid kit
- Some recovery straps, air compressor.
- We got Jerry cans to carry along some gas
and some water on the trail.
And we could put all this stuff in the bed,
but then people wouldn't know
that we're outdoorsy over-lander man.
So we got this really beefy bed rack to mount everything on
- All together all the gear we have for our recovery system,
as well as the bed bars equates to just under $500.
Where as hi-car.
- We spent five grand on this.
- Five grand? - what?
- Just shy of 10 times the amount that low team has.
- Right now this is like the mighty ducks
versus the fricking Russians. Legit.
- We did get a lot more stuff than low-team,
but I have a feeling that both teams
are going to benefit from this stuff.
The old saying goes, you don't need a winch,
You just need a friend with a winch.
And Zach Jobe and I are happy to be that friend.
Basically we're forest Rangers now.
- [Nolan] So we're beginning our recovery gear expedition
with our bed rack.
This is what we'll eventually use to mount a tent on
in the future if we choose to, which we will,
but we'll also maybe be able to mount some stuff
onto the sides who knows.
I know hi-team with their bed rack,
and their swing out arms on their tailgate.
They're going to have a lot of options,
as far as mounting recovery gear goes,
we're going to have to get a little bit
more creative with it.
This is kind of the foundation,
we got to make sure that everything that we mount
in our beds also jives with this,
Already, it is not compatible
with our current bed situation.
We may have to drill some holes in our bed,
which is no big deal.
Oh, that's pretty good, that's pretty spot on, pretty close.
Don't really like how much this is sticking out.
I might even chop it - might even chop it?
Yeah.
- Alright Zach Jobe, what's our order of operation?
- There's really kind of three big sections.
The rack, the swing arm and the winch.
I say we put the rack together first.
Yeah, we need some T-Nuts, so this extruded aluminum
is really convenient.
You can just slide nuts in here basically,
that you can then use to mount things to.
- It looks really cool, man.
- [Voice] Are you jealous Aaron?
- Yeah.
I mean no.
- So, I need to use the taller of the bed mounts.
Glad I measured, I was going to go with the short ones,
but it looks like we're going to need the tall ones. So.
- What the hell?
Coffee pods
The suck cam is coming through.
Wow.
It looks like a gym.
We can get in there and like do some pull-ups.
- This is the point where hi-truck
starts to get officially ridiculous
- In a good way though.
I think it's going to look pretty wild.
It's going to catch a lot of wind though on our drive.
- Almost done here on the bed racks,
we're just figuring out some holes situations and then we'll
be fully on.
It Looks kind of unassuming, fits us truck.
- B-R-O-O bed rack officially on.
- Let's see those racks on there dude.
- Racks on racks on racks on racks.
All right, We got our bed rack in place,
and we've got some stuff attached to it.
Like this handy dandy box.
You get dividers go in like that, which are kind of cool.
Then you can like store something across the top of them.
My only problem with it is
that there's no way to keep it open,
and this latch.
So we'll have to do something about that.
These will lock it,
but those are silly problems to have
for such expensive stuff.
But it is installed and one way or another it'll be handy.
- Follow me, Eddie.
Classic, low-car packaging.
Just beat to (beep)
This is our jack.
- I have no idea how to use one of these things.
It's a lot bigger than your normal side of the road Jack,
or even a jack you'd use the shop.
that's why it was pretty important that we had
solid jacking points.
I believe this is upside down.
This is made by Spinny .
It looks like a pretty solid piece of equipment here.
I do like the cement gray color way of this thing.
Very trendy.
Think we're going to come across any Raptors?
- Probably not.
- Rabid ones?
- Okay. So now I've got the welder back out.
I'm going to finish up the attachments to our sweet bumper.
We've got a cool swing-out set.
There's two swing-outs, and one will hold the spare tire,
and the other will hold Jerry cans and our high lift Jack.
So what I need to do is
get our Jerry can holder put together
I've got a tack.
I need to finish welding it up.
Then this will make a strap
that kind of holds the cans in place.
Wow.
These come from the Midwest Can Company.
I probably know who the guys.
Alright, so one of the last things
I need to do to get those swing-outs
to be fully functional is to make a little standout
that comes off the bumper,
which will hold the latches for the clasps.
So I'm going to cut a little section of this and basically
weld it off the back of the bumper.
The clasps will sit like here and here,
and then I'll have a way to lock down the swing-outs.
- Right, so the idea is to get this thing
up and out of the way, as much as possible.
I'm thinking about having some type of D-ring
in the front here, just to hold this thing.
And then have a plate on the back.
It's going to sit right here, up against the sheet metal.
We're going to tack it in place,
puts this up and out of the way,
but then also makes it accessible.
- Aaron, get your face out of there.
All right, our U bolt is in.
- That's badass dude.
- I just love how clean this looks.
Probably cost us what? Like $15 total.
- Nolan, I need your help.
- Oh, gotcha.
- My tire exploded and Jobe's under the truck.
- Wow, that's quick.
- Now that that's done,
we can put the bed racks back on and we've got some more
modifications to make to this.
- So we got to take this bumper off and paint it.
- I know what you're thinking, James,
are those cleats for a Bigfoot? No.
Are those little surfboards? No.
These are called recovery boards.
If you get real stuck,
you throw these underneath your tires.
Can give you a little traction.
Also although there plastic,
apparently they're strong enough to bridge small gaps.
These are $400.
- Oh my God.
- [James] Compared to the $80 ones
that are going on low truck.
that's a beefy bumper.
- [Zach] Should we make it a little heavier?
- We have finally reached the crown jewel of our
recovery equipment, our warn winch.
- So a winch is just basically a big electric motor that can
turn and a cable is attached to that motor.
So when the motor turns,
it turns and shortens the line on the cable,
effectively pulling something towards you,
or pulling you out of whatever you're stuck in.
It's pretty simple.
They're really strong, and they're pretty handy,
especially when you get stuck.
So next part is doing the electrical bit.
Seems pretty easy. It's all color coordinated.
You just match some wires from the control box here
that we just mounted onto the winch's motor.
So we've got three color coded wires,
than one that looks like it'll come up to our battery,
and then a ground for the motor.
- Oh my God.
God, Dude. It is so heavy.
I think that weighs as much as the engine in the A6.
- That's a winch baby, winch.
- Oh god, why is, oh no.
- [James] This is an accurate pre creation
of what's going to happen out on the trail.
Nolan has gotten himself stuck in low cart.
- Oh no.
- [James] All right Nolan, give her all you got
It is totally doing a Jurassic Park.
Winch works.
Now we're going to recreate our test with
low teams' come-along.
- There is a jam of sorts.
- Yeah, if only it had a remote tool.
- Who could have predicted that, that this would not work.
- See, that thing is whack, man.
It's already fricking twisted.
- Meanwhile, I'm dead.
- All right.
Help me, Nolan, I'm stuck!
- [Zach] Are you thrilled yet, James,
By our amazing technology?
- Man, our truck weighs way more then this cart
- [Zach] That was a little slower.
- Yeah, anyway, well I'm dead, and Nolan's tired,
and nobody's having any fun.
- Me and Nolan are all wrapped up with our setup.
- Hi teams' equipment looks awesome.
looks very expensive and kind of unnecessary.
We just have the essentials.
So let's see how the essentials stack up to the fancy stuff.
- Give her the beans James.
- Give it the beans.
- Give it some beans
- That's the beans
- I gave it too many beans.
- Couple beans.
- Get her the (beep) beans James!
Give me some beans, baby
- We said it a lot, you've heard it a lot,
and now it's on a freaking shirt.
The beans t-shirt is officially here.
It's got a cool little 'Give It The Beans' hit on the front.
And a Tacoma with all the HiLow fixes on the back.
Get yours right now at donutmedia.com.
only $29.98.
Which is so much less than $30.
Get yours before supplies run out, and give it the beans.
- That's enough beans
So we are back at Gorman, and we're about to test our winch
versus low teams come-along.
We've got low truck, good and stuck.
- We are stuck, stuck, stuck.
- And they're currently trying to work out
their approach to getting unstuck.
They can use everything at their disposal.
Their come-along, their lockers, four wheel drive.
- And then some of our stuff apparently.
- They're using our snatch block. If they want.
The whole point is to get unstuck,
and see how easy or not easy it is.
- I'm actually kind of a fan of the archaic tool.
It might not look fancy, but I think it's going to work.
I think in a lot of cases, when you're stuck,
you really just need to make it a foot or two till you're
over the obstacle you're stuck on .
- That's all our throat pretty much.
- [Nolan] Oh, I thought it was a lot longer than this.
- This is our first predicament, right?
Is getting to know this stuff.
- So if they're gonna to have a problem,
it's going to usually be at a connection.
So we're just going to put these on either side of our
connection here.
And if anything does go wrong,
these will pull down on the straps and keep them from
snapping out of control.
- All right so we've got our setup now.
Aaron has taken up the slack in our lines.
This looks really good.
We're using two vehicles and some pivot points.
This looks legit.
Go ahead.
- Well, this definitely isn't laborious.
Go Ahead
- [Aaron] Yes!
- Brake, brake, brake, brake
A little bit of a process but, you got it.
- That's a cheap extraction. If I've ever seen one.
- I mean, it seemed like a lot of work,
but it definitely got the truck out and it could save your
day, or even your life.
- This is like, a ton of work.
- Aright, So anytime you use a winch,
it's really important to make sure that all your cable or
synthetic rope is really tightly wound on the spool in here.
If it's all wrapped over top of itself,
or is loose on the spool,
as you try to winch yourself or somebody else out, that can
slip on the spool in there and either cause you to slip off
what you're doing or break your winch altogether and leave
you really stranded.
- I think they're going to get just as stuck as us forward,
but their recovery he's going to be a lot less laborious.
- Oh yeah, they got a lot more capable than we did.
- Legit they just got to detract the winch, hook it up.
Good to go.
- I'll call that stuck. I think we're stuck.
So I'm going to snatch block from here,
and then just hook to the Jeep.
- Quick work, light work.
- Jobe almost got us all hooked up.
I've got to say a lot faster than with the come-along.
We have so much line to work with.
- Now we've got a pulley here to redirect our winch line.
So we come up here and use this anchor point and the Jeep.
- Are you ready?
Always ready with the gas.
- Taking up slack.
Give me some juice there, James.
Try to turning to the right.
- You look good Jobe.
- Well, we did it with power of electricity and steel cable.
- What's up guys?
I'm James Humphrey and you're on MTV's unstuck.
- It's fun, man.
It's like a zip line, but in a car,
I felt like a baby existing in the abyss of that ditch.
And then a winch just broke through the clouds and pulled me
up and he's like, hi, I'm Zach Jobe,
let's go on an adventure together.
I said, for the rest of my life, let's do it.
- So, Nolan, does more expensive, mean more better?
And don't say you don't know, Or I swear to God.
- Yeah. Yes, yes it does.
- I agree.
But the question is how much better?
Is it worth that difference in the price?
Let's break it down.
Time spent recovering your truck.
- You can't beat the convenience factor of the winch,
that's without a doubt.
However, the come-along did work.
- For our test at Gorman it took low truck,
about 30 minutes to get unstuck.
And it only took Hi truck about 10.
- Yeah, what is that,
three times as fast for a lot more times the money?
I would say besides physical effort.
The biggest drawback of the come-along versus the winch is
the amount of line.
If you have longer straps than necessary,
you'll use the come-along to winch it in,
to take out the slack and then you'll have
like one workable foot.
That's not gonna work.
You don't have to worry about that at all.
And that is obviously a huge, huge advantage.
- The main defense of the come-along is why spend the extra
money?
It's so much more expensive for a winch.
You're only gonna use a come-along
a couple of times a year. What's the point?
Well, now in a future episode,
we come across an obstacle that was so tough.
Both trucks got stuck and Zach Jobe and I
immediately we were like, okay, let's pull out the winch.
Let's get ourselves out of here,
whereas you and Erin did everything you could,
you were using your traction boards,
you were kicking rocks around,
you were locking/unlocking stuff.
And yeah, I think the convenience of the winch
really came through in that moment.
- Yeah.
- Cause it was our first option.
- For sure.
- And the come-along as you guys last.
- Very, very last option.
I'm gonna have to go with the winch.
Not only is it more convenient and it gives you better
peace of mind, but also just looks cool.
You know, that can't be discounted.
A winch adds a lot of cred to your truck.
And they're also very versatile in the ways that you can use
them versatility.
And I think that's worth a lot.
- That being said, if you can't afford a $1,200 winch,
there are cheaper winch options out there.
I'm not sure that I would go for the come-along.
I would just try to find a decent winch option.
- Thank you guys so much for watching HiLow
and everything else on donut.
We like trucks now. We like to let everyone know.
If you like trucks too you can go to donutmedia.com
and get yourself an official trucks hat,
inspired directly by HiLow.
We also have super extended cuts of all these episodes
available on the donut underground, it's one of the perks.
To learn more about that, hit the join button,
or I'll put a link in the description.
- Those director's cuts have a lot of jokes.
- They got a lot of bits that I wish made the final cut,
and I think should have.
Apparently, a lot of them got cut.
- Apparently they would demonetize our channel.
- So if you want to see us say all the words
hit that join button
- Be kind
- I love you
- See you next time.