your Vehicle Stuck in Snow

[SSSdave]

The current rear wheel driving thread touched on another topic we might have some fun with as we continue to wait for white flakes...

Ever gotten your vehicle stuck in snow? What model, year vehicle? Where did that happen and how was it extracted? How long were you stuck? Did it affect a ski day? What gear do you bring along in your vehicle to help remove your vehicle from getting stuck?

This person that has been skiing nearly 5 decades has a few stories. It often happens when one is parking besides snowy roads where roadsides are not plowed as one may not be able to tell how deep snow is as the ground just off pavement might be flat at the same level as the asphalt or there may be a rut or worse a ditch. Best to get out and poke down in the snow with a long screwdriver or whatever.

Last winter drove up one cold sunny early morning from where I live in the SF Bay Area up to South Lake Tahoe in order to ski Heavenly. Near the Nevada state line and casinos is a rare legal free parking spot along one of the several lodging roads one might park in order to walk to the gondola. Well it was a few days after some big storms and areas off the pavement had not been flattened fully. I could see where some others had parked there and spun wheels that tends to create icy spots where wheels spin melting snow and then refreezing. After looking at it carefully, decided my 07 Forester would not have problems.

Drove into to the spot carefully and then verified I was able to back out fine. But when I moved in the second time, one tire slipped into one of the spinning ice holes...OOOOPs. And that driver side back tire would just spin while the driver side front tire then proceeded to start spinning on a spot it was at making a small hole. I immediately stopped and got out to look at the situation before it got worse. I have snow chains, a shovel, two 4 foot long 8x1 boards, a usual car jack, and a heavy duty tow able to help in such situations. I raised the rear tire up with the jack and then pushed my chains under the tire, and removed the jack. My boards which are more for sand in the summer would not fit as it was uneven. Well chains just kept spitting out with tire rotation. So then jacked the front tire up then put a board underneath. That almost got me out but then it slid back down in the same spot upon rocking. About then a guy in an SUV came by and stopped to help as he saw I'd stretch out my tow cable at that point. So I pushed the cable through a tow loop on his vehicle's rear fender and the two big cable hooks to my front frame that Subaru nicely has available tow hooks through and in quick order I was free.

 

[surfsnowgirl]

When I first moved back to New England I had a Chrysler Sebring convertible. It actually did ok in the snow as it was low to the ground, was front wheel drive and I had some good all season yokohamas on there. That said if the snow was ever deep was where I had issues. If I ever got in a deep area I'd just rock back and forth going from drive, park and back and forth til I was able to pull forward or back out. Fun vehicle but got rid of that as soon as I could as it wasn't a ski vehicle. I'd have one again as a second car, wasn't fast but it was a nice convertible that wasn't a tiny thing, we had a good time together.

 

[Posaune]

Not stuck, but lost in snow. In the '70s I spent a week at Stevens Pass during college break. I was on patrol so I could stay at the ski area in the aid building. I didn't leave for a number of days, so after a full day of patrolling when I went to my car to go home I found that it had snowed so much during the week that it was completely buried alongside several others. It took quite a while to determine which vehicle (1965 VW beetle) was mine (they all looked like giant powder covered moguls) and then I had to dig a ditch to the highway (with the army surplus entrenching tool I kept in the trunk) in order to get out. Thank goodness I was parked in the front row facing the highway. I remember being totally trashed by the time I had the ditch dug and there was about two or three feet of snow still on top of the car as I pulled out.

 

[dbostedo]

I've never been completely stuck - as in needing a tow truck - but I have needed to do some serous rocking, and have been pushed a couple of times.

-- High school, driving a two door Chevy Blazer. The road and driveway were covered but fine packed, but they had plowed in the driveway leaving about a 3 foot tall pile. I wanted to plow through it and couldn't get up much speed as it was a hard left turn into the driveway. Even with the 4 wheel drive engaged, I didn't make it through entirely. Took a couple of runs to get through.

-- Same car... I drove a while then parked on some snow cover. The warm tires melted four nice ice divots in the surface and I was spinning when trying to leave later. Took some serious rocking before I popped out of them and could go.

-- My Acura TSX many years later, trying to get to Blue Knob for the mid-A Gathering. It was night time and I was the first to get to the ski house. I tried a few times to make a run up the hill to it, and kept sliding back, eventually backing into the snow bank on the side and couldn't really get a run at it again. But I had Autosocks!! Put them on the front wheels and went right up it without issue. Made me a fan/believer.

-- Same car in a bad evening rush hour snowstorm here in DC. Took me 5.5 hours to get home from work (normally 1/2 hour). Got into my condo complex and stopped to turn into my garage, and couldn't make the turn. The area in front was so icy I slid further down the hill and couldn't back up to make the turn. Some of my wonderful neighbors and I pushed and dug, and chipped away at the ice and I eventually got into the garage.

 

[Sibhusky]

Since I've been driving 51 years, needless to say it's a bit hard to remember back to rear wheel drive days. I don't remember ever being stuck in my Datsun B210 or my Mazda 626. I do remember going off the road in the Mazda once, but I backed right out. The B210 was so light it generally floated above the snow and just went. I remember being up near Killington and many were spinning their wheels in the lot, but the B210 just climbed out of its place and drove. Neither of those cars ever had snow tires. Then I started getting AWD after I couldn't get home one Christmas Eve to our place in the Poconos. Myself with a baby, my husband, and my parents, all in "nice clothes" including heels, hitching rides up the hill. I vowed that would never happen again. So, the Mazda was replaced by an Audi Quattro. Since that time I know for sure that the only times I have been in a snowbank were when 1) my snow tires weren't on yet because it was early season and 2) that some idiot was parked dead center in what I now label the "target area" at the bottom of my hill. I have finally learned not to even start down the hill unless that area is totally empty. Because you MUST TURN and if you're trying to avoid an obstruction your Plan B is going to be the snowbank. I now have a tow rope in my trunk, because the road edges have deep drainage ditches. And if they've just plowed, I won't drive on any part of the road that doesn't have a tire imprint in it. They have a tendency to plow over the edge of the road, including the then-invisible ditch. There's always garbage trucks or other plows falling into those things.

But I've never gone off the road when my snow tires were on.

 

[luliski]

Twice in Tahoe last winter. Both times in my 2002 CR-V with snow tires. The first time I was out late sitting in a hot tub while it snowed. It had snowed at least a foot by the time I got back to the motel I was staying at, and the parking lot was almost full. The parking lot is narrow and was made narrower by piled up snow. I pulled too far into deep snow to keep my car from sticking too far into the lot. The next morning, it took a lot of shoveling around the wheels and rocking back and forth to get my car out. I don't think the manual transmission helped either, as when I was going in reverse I was spinning too much to get up over the snow.

The second time was in a friend's driveway in Tahoe City. The driveway is steep and then you make a 90 degree turn to a level parking space. The driveway was plowed, but there was packed snow on it. The snowbanks lining the driveway were higher than the car, and it was narrow. Getting into the parking space was not a problem, but many people have slid into the street backing out. I knew I would have a problem even before I started to back out. Sure enough, I didn't turn my wheels soon enough to make the 90 degree turn, and became wedged against the snowbank. When I tried to go forward (up the driveway) to correct, my wheels would spin. We ended up putting rocks under my wheels and that worked.

I have also had that car stuck in mud when I tried to take a short cut at a barn. Luckily they had a tractor there to pull me out.

 

[Josh Matta]

is your CRV 4wd?

I have had 3 CRVs and they can literally plow snow


I havent drove my 02 in the snow yet, but my 99 we so good.

Last time I was stuck in snow was with my 94 Integra GSR in 2 feet of snow in my driveway in utah, since going to to 4wd never been problem.

 

[slowrider]

I slid down a beaver slide on a goat trail in the mountains backwards at 2 am in the woods on pack snow in a log truck once. Does that count. ;-)

 

[luliski]

is your CRV 4wd?

It is real-time AWD, whatever that means. It's also manual transmission, and I think that was a factor in that I was spinning the tires too much. Both times I was trying to start uphill. But normally the car has been really good in the snow. Last winter there was just so much!

 

[Josh Matta]

I think your rear Diff may be messed up...

Manual should make it easier, not harder.

 

[luliski]

I think your rear Diff may be messed up...

Manual should make it easier, not harder.

I had been driving an automatic to the mountains for the past few years. I may have lost my touch with the clutch and gas pedal timing when starting up hill. What is a rear diff?

 

[luliski]

Here’s my CR-V in the driveway it got stuck in. Behind this level parking space is a narrow 90 degree turn, leading to a steep, slick drop to the road. I didn’t negotiate the turn well...

 

[dbostedo]

What is a rear diff?

The rear differential. It's the set of gears that take connects the driveshaft coming out of the engine and transmission, to the axles going to the wheels. It's called a differential, because it allows the two wheels to turn at different speeds in a turn. (Because the inside wheel covers a shorter distance, and needs to turn a little slower.)

With a typical, simple one, the differential can drive just one wheel, and let the other just freewheel. This is what happens when one wheel is spinning and the other doesn't do anything. There are different types of limited-slip or even locking differentials that help prevent that. And of course in a 4WD or AWD system, it may be controlled in some way for all 4 wheels.

 

[luliski]

The rear differential. It's the set of gears that take connects the driveshaft coming out of the engine and transmission, to the axles going to the wheels. It's called a differential, because it allows the two wheels to turn at different speeds in a turn. (Because the inside wheel covers a shorter distance, and needs to turn a little slower.)

With a typical, simple one, the differential can drive just one wheel, and let the other just freewheel. This is what happens when one wheel is spinning and the other doesn't do anything. There are different types of limited-slip or even locking differentials that help prevent that. And of course in a 4WD or AWD system, it may be controlled in some way for all 4 wheels.

Thank you. That didn't come up as one the issues that was wrong with the car when I had it checked. I think it was just the conditions and my technique.

 

[wyowindrunner]

I had been driving an automatic to the mountains for the past few years. I may have lost my touch with the clutch and gas pedal timing when starting up hill. What is a rear diff?

The unit that helps supply power to your rear wheels- Crv's are primarily a front wheel drive vehicle that when the computer senses a loss of traction to the front tires applies the traction power to the rear wheels. The first and second gen CRV's and I think later generations use a fluid coupled system, as the front wheels lose traction the rear wheels get more thru more applied hydralic pressure. Think yours is a second gen ?(02-06). And a five speed? These are rare birds- if I remember right they had to be ordered that way. Any how, Josh may be right about the diff. The fluid has to be changed in these every 25,000 miles. I have an 06/ five gear that has seen a lot of deep snow/mud on rig roads in Wyoming. Got stuck once last year, blizzard that left much of eastern Wyoming without power for 2 days. 4wd pickups were stuck all over too. Maintianers had a hard time keeping the roads open for more than an hour or so. Traction wasn't the problem with the CRV- got high centered and hung up. Generally get the fluid changed every 18-20K. Might be worth checking out. Starting out in second can help sometimes too.

 

[luliski]

The unit that helps supply power to your rear wheels- Crv's are primarily a front wheel drive vehicle that when the computer senses a loss of traction to the front tires applies the traction power to the rear wheels. The first and second gen CRV's and I think later generations use a fluid coupled system, as the front wheels lose traction the rear wheels get more thru more applied hydralic pressure. Think yours is a second gen ?(02-06). And a five speed? These are rare birds- if I remember right they had to be ordered that way. Any how, Josh may be right about the diff. The fluid has to be changed in these every 25,000 miles. I have an 06/ five gear that has seen a lot of deep snow/mud on rig roads in Wyoming. Got stuck once last year, blizzard that left much of eastern Wyoming without power for 2 days. 4wd pickups were stuck all over too. Maintianers had a hard time keeping the roads open for more than an hour or so. Traction wasn't the problem with the CRV- got high centered and hung up. Generally get the fluid changed every 18-20K. Might be worth checking out. Starting out in second can help sometimes too.

Yes, 02, 5 speed. I didn't special order it, but I did have to search a few dealerships for it. So I'll have to find out if they changed that fluid with the standard recommended service.

 

[Josh Matta]

yeah the rear diff needs the fluid changed to remain functional, its also really hard to check you would need to literally put it on a slippery surface from stop and see if the rear end power the car. The thing is FWD with snow works pretty well and except in extreme circimstances the rear end usually does not come into play.

 

[Sibhusky]

I'm on my first automatic transmission vehicle. I resisted forever because of the ability to use the clutch and the gas to rock the car that you have with a manual. I'm not sure I can do it with an automatic. Glad I haven't had to. With a manual you're not switching between forward and reverse as you rock, you're just using the momentum of the car as it descends the pocket of the snow to go the other direction, while timing your clutch.

 

[wyowindrunner]

Yes, 02, 5 speed. I didn't special order it, but I did have to search a few dealerships for it. So I'll have to find out if they changed that fluid with the standard recommended service.

They are sure a lot more fun to drive!

 

[dbostedo]

I'm on my first automatic transmission vehicle. I resisted forever because of the ability to use the clutch and the gas to rock the car that you have with a manual. I'm not sure I can do it with an automatic. Glad I haven't had to. With a manual you're not switching between forward and reverse as you rock, you're just using the momentum of the car as it descends the pocket of the snow to go the other direction, while timing your clutch.

I've usually rocked an automatic by shifting between forward and neutral... but it's a pain, and I worry about what I might be doing to the transmission.