There’s nothing worse than getting to your campsite and finding the load in the back of your 4WD wagon or ute has shifted, and the tent is now at the bottom of the pile!

Or you get out to a job, only to find you have to unpack the whole lot to get to your electric drill – the only tool you need on this particular job – because it’s slipped down between a drum of cable and a box of clamps.

But it doesn’t have to be that way if you’re clever, and fit out your 4WD so the stuff you’re carrying can’t shift, and it’s all easy to find at any time.

Whether you use your 4WD for leisure or work – or both - there are a number of systems available on the market to make it all nice and easy for you to store your stuff tidily and safely.

Among the most useful are built-in sliding drawers. These lift the level of the load bed, but are extremely useful, particularly for a ute, where they allow you to get into the far corners without having to clamber into the back.

ARB markets the Milford roller drawer system. Designed to be able to take a huge amount of wear and tear in a genuine working environment, they utilise a galvanised sheet metal frame which is bolted securely into the back of the vehicle.

The drawers sit on sealed roller bearings, with unique injection moulded anti-rattle guides, strong grab handles, security locks and a clever safety hand gap.

The whole thing is covered in 6mm thick industrial carpet to give a really good look.
Milford also has a range of cargo barriers so you don’t end up with a heavy object embedded in your skull in the event of sudden braking or a crash.

New Zealand company Best Bars also offers a wide range of cargo barriers, with applications to suit most popular vehicles, especially from Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota.

And we were especially taken with a clever lockable storage drawer from Best Bars which fits into the “dead space” underneath a flat bed tray, allowing a secure place to keep your tools and so on away from prying eyes. At the same time it means this equipment is extremely easy to get to.

Also available are boxes designed to fit under the side of a tray between the vehicle body and the wheel arch.

Best Bars also has a range of heavy-duty storage boxes for tools and equipment which has been designed especially for rugged New Zealand bush and country conditions.

Manufactured from double-thickness aluminium checker plate, the storage boxes are said to meet a growing need from contractors, builders, farmers, forestry workers and also for recreational use.

CEO Stephen de Kriek says: “Our R&D team carried out considerable research to find an answer and came up with the toughest storages boxes on the market.”

He says in addition to being twice as thick as other boxes on the market, the Best Bars boxes also have stainless steel hinges and lockable latches.

They are tailored to fit utes available in New Zealand, as well as complementing the existing range of trays and other storage solutions offered by Best Bars.

Styles range from simple oblong boxes to those that fit snugly along the width of a wellside, and include boxes with gullwing top lids.

The larger boxes are fitted with hydraulic struts.

The wellside boxes are designed so a canopy can be fitted, and the flat top boxes will also fit under a tonneau.

Other boxes include single and double aluminium dog boxes and triangular-shaped boxes that can sit on the A-frame pn a trailer or caravan.

Frdiges are heavy and cumbersome things, and quite often getting to them can be a paid. However there are a number of fridge slide conversions available on the market which make it dead easy to get to your fridge.

The slides are bolted to the floor of your vehicle so that the door can just close when they are in the locked position. The fridge is then securely to the slides so it can’t move about.

When you want to get something from the fridge, you merely open the back door, or drop the tailgate in the case of a ute, and slide the whole fridge towards you so you can get into it without having to climb into the vehicle.

The fridge is easy to remove from the slides, and the slides can be taken out and transferred to another vehicle when you want to.

Another New Zealand company offering a very clever product for increasing the versatility of your ute – and making it safer to carry loads – is Airplex.

The Airplex Bed Extender is designed to allow your ute to be used with the tailgate down to carry longer loads.  Or just as useful is its ability to rotate 180 degrees into the tray of the ute to prevent luggage from sliding around and becoming damaged or hard to reach from the rear of the vehicle.

It has been specially designed to be used with most canopies.
 
The bed extender is a simple u-shaped device which is placed in one of three positions.

The first is flat inside the wellside, where it forms an effective partition to neatly divide the wellside into two parts.

The second is where it is placed in position onto the tailgate – which is dropped into the horizontal position - and here it extends the length of the wellside for safely and securely carrying long objects.

Or you can stow it upright so the wellside can be used normally, and if you want to remove it completely this is can be easily done when it is in the vertical position.