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Yeti offers a wide range of accessories to help you customize your Yeti cooler to how you most often use it. This includes cooler dividers, bottle openers, and even a special type of dry basket insert to keep your dry goods cool, without letting them touch the wet ice surrounding them.
When you consider the customizable accessories and the superior material build quality, a Yeti cooler is definitely worth the investment for hunters, anglers, or even professional caterers. Most of their popular larger models feature single-body construction with up to two inches of insulation in the walls and lids with a tightly sealed gasket.
Other components such as straps and locking brackets on a Yeti cooler boost the real-world functionality of their ice chests. The straps add to the portability of the Yeti cooler and also help hold it in place during transport, while the locking bracket provides security as well as ensures a tight seal for the lid.
Is a Yeti Cooler Really Worth It?
The one-piece construction, robust insulation and sound engineering principles infused into Yeti’s most popular coolers make them some of the best ice chests on the market today. Though the price for even their smallest coolers is still very high compared to a lot of other brand-name coolers on the retail market.
They tend to have the best return on investment for backwoods hunters, fishermen, eco-tourists, and people who absolutely need a cooler that can keep their perishable foods cold for multiple days at a time. Being able to trust that your food is safe when you are far from any feasible source of ice can literally be a lifesaver.
A Yeti cooler is also a top priority for people and businesses who need to transport perishable items over great distances. This might be an adventure angler who needs to get their freshly frozen fish filets home from an Alaskan fishing trip or a caterer that needs to hold food at a specific temperature for more than an hour before serving.
Though the potential return on investment for a Yeti cooler starts to go down if you’re only going to use it for mundane purposes. When you compare the cost and performance to a quality cooler with an insulated lid for half the price, a Yeti doesn’t have as much value for a trip to the beach or keeping drinks cold while watching a parade.
A lot of cheaper competitor coolers will give you the same bang for your buck in a 24-hour or less window of time. This means that Yeti coolers are only truly worth it for longer cold or warm storage situations.
What Are the Straps on Yeti Coolers for?
The multipurpose straps on a Yeti cooler do a good job of helping to secure the ice chest in place. They keep them from slipping and sliding around in storage, as you can strap them to the hard points in the box of a pickup truck or the trunk of an SUV.
Yeti coolers with longer straps can also help with portability when you get to your destination. They can even help you secure the Yeti cooler on the back of an ATV or in the hull of a boat.
If you’re staying deep in the backwoods, they can also be used as part of a bear hang. They let you hoist the cooler with much more confidence than if you tried to improvise bungee cords on a lesser cooler.
How Do You Use a Yeti Locking Bracket?
The Yeti locking bracket adds an extra layer of security to prevent anyone from stealing your Yeti cooler. Most people who transport their Yeti cooler in the open cargo box of their pickup truck consider it a must-have security item, for what is essentially a high-value cooler.
You can set up a Yeti locking bracket using the following steps
Step One: Open the lid of the cooler and insert the locking bracket into the narrow tie-down slot at the side. Make sure the angle of the bracket has the hole in the bracket facing outward.
Step Two: Thread the locking cable through the hole, and reconnect it to the cable lock.
Step Three: Carefully tighten the cable until it is reasonably snug, to the body of the cooler, but not so tight that you can’t adjust the lock.
If you wanted instead to use a padlock and chain, you would tighten it snuggly to the cooler body, but not so tight that you couldn’t access the keyhole or enter the combination.
How Do You Stop the Yeti Theft?
The high value of Yeti coolers makes them a target for keen-eyed thieves who want to steal it out of the back of your truck or snatch it away from your side when you aren’t looking. Fortunately, Yeti is well aware of this, and they have gone the extra mile to build many of their popular coolers with safety features like their simple locking bracket.
Preventing your Yeti from being stolen out of the back of your truck starts with securely connecting the locking bracket to a cable or chain. You then connect the cable to a welded hardpoint or tie-down anchor in the cargo box of your truck.
I would recommend using an anti-theft bike cable that’s rated to be highly resistant to bolt cutters. Most modern-day bolt cutters can make short work of even robust chains.
At the same time, you should also use a bike lock or a high-value RV trailer lock. An ordinary padlock is easy to cut through with a bolt cutter, and most can even be broken by a solid whack from a three-pound sledgehammer.
You can use this same locking bracket and cable strategy to secure your cooler when it isn’t in the cargo box of your truck. Looping the cable around a heavy object like the frame of a picnic table or around a tree will keep someone from swiping the cooler when it’s unattended.
Yet the way the locking bracket inserts into the side will still make it easy for you to open the lid at a moment’s notice to retrieve a cold drink or anything else inside your Yeti cooler.
Final Thoughts
Yeti accessories certainly help add to the value of a Yeti cooler. There’s no doubt about it, these ice chests are a serious investment, and you need to take good care of them.
The Yeti locking bracket is the best way to secure your Yeti cooler against theft. It fits into the side slot in the lid, giving you the ability to connect a cable and lock to anchor it firmly in place.
The straps on a lot of popular Yeti coolers also help protect and add functional value to the ice chest. They can be used to help hold the cooler in place during transport, they add to the portability, and you can even use them to hang the cooler in a tree to keep it safe from animals at night.
Deciding if a Yeti cooler is worth it for you ultimately comes down to how you’ll use it. If you just need a way to keep a few drinks cold for a trip to the beach, a tailgate party, or during a long parade, you probably aren’t going to feel like you’re really getting a return on your investment in a high-priced cooler like a Yeti.
Though a Yeti cooler is definitely worth it if you are a backwoods hunter, camping enthusiast or a destination angler who needs to rely on a cooler to keep your perishable foods cold for days at a time.
Professional caterers also tend to appreciate Yeti coolers for being able to keep prepped foods and beverages at the ideal temperature for much longer than most of the coolers sold at the retail level.
Robert is a certified Pitmaster, with over a decade of experience in smoking the best meats you’ll ever feast upon. He also has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio. When he’s not researching technical topics, he’s most likely barbecuing in his backyard.