A radio frequency (rf) quadrupole has been considered as a potential alternative device for Landau damping in circular hadron colliders. The objective of this study is to benchmark and confirm its stabilizing effect predicted by stability diagram theory by means of numerical tracking simulations. To that end, two complementary models of the device are implemented in PyHEADTAIL, a 6D macroparticle tracking code designed to study the formation and mitigation of collective instabilities. The rf quadrupole model is applied to a slow head-tail instability observed experimentally in the Large Hadron Collider to show that such a device can in principle provide beam stability similarly to magnetic octupoles. Thereafter, alternative usage schemes of rf quadrupoles also in combination with magnetic octupoles are proposed, discussed, and benchmarked with simulations.