how to dig your car out..

I probably shouldn't have left my car outside the chalet without moving it for a month :D It's been buried in snow 5 or 10 times and it's melted back to reveal the car.

By this morning the plan for digging it out, i.e. wait until enough melts then drive, looked fairly good. Initially it seemed quite good, the engine roared into life on the first go with no obvious sign it had been stood there so long. Then I tried to reverse out and promptly stalled as the car wouldn't move.

Turns out the tyres had frozen into ruts on the track and the car wouldn't move. First I tried to clear some of the snow and ice from around the wheels but that didn't seem to work. Next, I decided to chuck hot water at the wheels, it might re-freeze but not so solid. That seemed to work quite well, at least the tyres reappeared out of the snow but still no joy actually moving.

Finally, I hit on the idea of jacking each wheel up in turn to break them free, that worked a treat, the jack has a huge mechanical advantage so it can lift the wheel just fine. Obviously it's not a great idea to leave a normal car so long in those temperatures but if you do, jacking the wheels works a treat :D

BTW, In case anyone doesn't know, the one thing you should never, ever do is leave the hand-brake on as it can freeze on.

What no photo ise :lol:dont just tell us show us :mrgreen:


AJ Adele

ise wrote:I probably shouldn't have left my car outside the chalet without moving it for a month :D It's been buried in snow 5 or 10 times and it's melted back to reveal the car.

By this morning the plan for digging it out, i.e. wait until enough melts then drive, looked fairly good. Initially it seemed quite good, the engine roared into life on the first go with no obvious sign it had been stood there so long. Then I tried to reverse out and promptly stalled as the car wouldn't move.

Turns out the tyres had frozen into ruts on the track and the car wouldn't move. First I tried to clear some of the snow and ice from around the wheels but that didn't seem to work. Next, I decided to chuck hot water at the wheels, it might re-freeze but not so solid. That seemed to work quite well, at least the tyres reappeared out of the snow but still no joy actually moving.

Finally, I hit on the idea of jacking each wheel up in turn to break them free, that worked a treat, the jack has a huge mechanical advantage so it can lift the wheel just fine. Obviously it's not a great idea to leave a normal car so long in those temperatures but if you do, jacking the wheels works a treat :D

BTW, In case anyone doesn't know, the one thing you should never, ever do is leave the hand-brake on as it can freeze on.

that is a really great idea!! I wish I would have thought about that when the Midwest of the US got hammered by 3 feet of snow

Good idea, I would not have thought to use a jack.

Even worse sometimes is a freezing rain/ice storm. My worst experience was comming out of work one night about 10pm in Nov (several years ago). The cars were covered with about 15 to 25 mm of glazed ice. You could unlock the the car doors by warming the keys up, but the doors were sealed with nearly an inch of ice. There were several of us, who had worked late and it took over an hour to carefully chip away at the ice with hammers and screwdrivers to allow the the doors to open and another hour to get enough ice off to see out to drive. It then took an hour and a half to to do the normally 30min drive home. The not so joys of living in a cold climate.

An ice storm is bad news for skiing as well. It can take several days of grooming to fix the snow and any new snow will be blown off the ice by the slightest wind.

Trencher

AJ wrote:What no photo ise :lol:dont just tell us show us :mrgreen:


AJ Adele

no photo's :oops: here's one of the car not stuck in the same place last season :

Poor you, what a hassle. You could have called me up and I would have come round and helped out. Could have towed you out if necessary (I'm assuming you have a towing eye?)
So, when are you going to invest in a car port? :D