How to choose a tow rope for our car?

May 23, 2022

Tow ropes are durable, heavy-duty lengths of rope designed for towing, recovery, and possibly other uses. A tow rope must be a true rope - it is a twisted and braided strand made of natural or synthetic fibers, with both ends terminated either with braided loops, hooks, shackles, or vehicle attachments.

Tow ropes offer a versatile tool for a variety of towing applications, and if you live in an area with heavy snow, you won't want to be without one. They can be used for general purpose towing and are especially effective for recovering stranded or submerged vehicles. Tow ropes are also a popular choice for water sports and boat towing, as well as aircraft use and other industrial applications.

What is a tugboat made of?

Most tow ropes on the market today are synthetic and made from a variety of materials that offer varying degrees of tensile strength, breaking strength, abrasion resistance, and other characteristics.

There was a time when all the ropes used for towing were natural fiber ropes, and they worked well for road towing, steady pulling, and other applications where consistent force was applied. You can still find them around, and they are inexpensive.

Nylon tow rope is very elastic and can stretch up to 30% of its original length under tension. The elasticity of nylon and other similar synthetic fibers makes them useful for constructing tow ropes intended for kinetic recovery.

A 100% nylon tow rope can be too stretchy for regular road towing, so other synthetic fibers are also used to make less stretch tow ropes. You will see tow ropes made of polypropylene, polyethylene, or polyester, which are usually blended with a certain amount of nylon to make the tow ropes significantly less stretchy.

Attaching the tow rope:

A tow rope usually has features for attaching the rope to vehicles. This can be as simple as a ring on the ends of the tow rope. Some tow ropes may come with hooks, safety clips, or shackles. Tow ropes are also sometimes used with collapsible rope housing accessories.

For general purpose towing and recovery, most experts recommend a synthetic towline without hooks, especially in the case of kinetic towing, which is intended for vehicle recovery. The large amount of energy that these elastic ropes store under tension can be very high, and the resulting recoil when the hook or shackle fails can be damaging.

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