MAXTRAX Xtreme recovery board: product test

MAXTRAX has taken its popular traction boards to the next level, with more durable, replaceable lugs.

We’ve long been fans of the recovery boards from MAXTRAX, with the bright orange wonders getting us out of many sticky situations when testing vehicles off-road. Their ease of use and transportation, plus the way they allow you to recover a vehicle safely, makes throwing them into the back of the four-wheel drive a no-brainer.

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They are particularly relevant when testing new vehicles that don’t have rated recovery points for snatch or winch recoveries. As such, if your 4x4 isn’t equipped with recovery points, then MAXTRAX should be your go-to item.

With so many positives about the product it was hard to think of ways to improve it, but the hardworking team at MAXTRAX never rest on their laurels and are always looking for ways to make things better. If there was a complaint about MAXTRAX it came from users who inadvertently spun the tyres on the boards and melted the nylon traction ‘teeth’. This is despite all instructions and recommendations to crawl onto the tracks and to never spin the tyres on them.

Brad McCarthy and his team have been working for years to create MAXTRAX with replaceable teeth for such instances, and at the 2017 SEMA Show they unveiled the MAXTRAX Xtreme. They will come to the market here March of 2019.

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The Xtreme is pretty much a replica of the MAXTRAX Mark 2, except for the now-replaceable traction teeth. The pattern of the teeth is the same; the size of the boards is the same; they still feature the shovel scoops at each end and handles down each side; they are made of the same tough-yet-flexible nylon material; and they can still be linked together to form a longer track.

They are so similar the Xtreme will stack neatly with the old MAXTRAX Mk2. The company hasn’t steered away from a design that has proved to work well.

The removable teeth are made from aluminium alloy and, when screwed into place, they are locked into position with locating lugs to ensure they are angled at the optimum position. Should a user ever damage or break one of the teeth, they can swap them out with another tooth from elsewhere on the track or they can purchase a replacement to restore the track to as-new condition.

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We were lucky enough to score a set of MAXTRAX Xtremes from a very early production run and have used them on a number of trips, recovering vehicles in sand, mud and snow. As always, they have performed as described and got vehicles out of trouble with ease.

MAXTRAX claims the Xtremes perform better than the all-nylon tracks, as the metal teeth don’t give as much as nylon, resulting in more direct and quicker traction to get you out. We can’t argue with the claim as they’ve always worked well for us and we haven’t damaged any of the teeth, even with tyres fitted with metal snow chains.

The MAXTRAX Xtremes make a great product even better, ensuring they’ll easily get you out of a bog.

on 4x4 Gear

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Available from: www.maxtrax.com.au
RRP: $449 a pair
We Say: Makes a good thing even better