Suzuki Vitara stuck in mud hole

Wednesday, March 19th, 2025, at 9:04 a.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in California. The requester, Justin Taylor, submitted the following information: “Car: Suzuki Vitara 2004 stock. Road: trail in Oceanside, steep inclines and declines, muddy in some areas but manageable if you have good tires and a decent clearance (mine usually does fine for all conditions)Distance from main road: 2 miles. Distance from solid ground: 6 feet. Situation: I was hitting a trail I normally hit but the recent rain created a decent mud hole I could not clear. Tires are sunk in and frame is high centered. All it really needs is a decent off-road rig to pull it out via winch or tow strap. / I’m with the vehicle / I can help cover the cost of fuel.”

Our administrator, Al Fontan, contacted the requester and verified the contact information provided, GPS location, and current situation before sending the request to local volunteers. In this particular recovery, we contacted volunteers within a 20-mile radius.

From the contacted volunteers we got quite a few right away offering help, chatting and trying to figure out how to help. One volunteer marked himself as engaging and took over the request, Richard Anderson.

Justin the requester was also a volunteer, so he helped coordinate from the lobby too. The recovery was set to be done around 1 p.m. A few hours later we received an update on our lobby from Justin letting us know Richard got him out.

A few days later we received a quick note from Richard.

From Richard

We didn’t take any photos or videos except for the one Justin snapped. It was a breeze to get out of the mudhole – a quick winch pull of about 10 feet and the car was free! The Suzuki Vitara had a cool recovery loop on the front (the yellow one in the picture). We used a soft shackle (Bubba Ropes Gator Jaw Pro) to connect my 10k Warn winch (Zeon 10s) with 3/8” synthetic rope. The rope ended with a Factor 55 FlatLink E. We connected the front of the Vitara to the winch and used a single line pull in a closed system winch. It took maybe 5 minutes at most.