Master Auto Repair and Detailing

Your Car Is Stuck In The Snow. Now What?

No matter how well you've prepared for winter driving, you may still find yourself in a situation where your car is stuck in snow or ice. If help is delayed or unavailable, here are some steps you can take to try to free your vehicle.

Regardless of whether you've just skidded into a snowbank or returned to your parked car after a heavy snowfall, you should first determine whether your car's exhaust is blocked by the snow. If so, clearing that snow should be your first priority. The next step is to clear away as much snow around the wheels as you can.

Ensure that nobody is standing in the vicinity of the vehicle when making an attempt to free it.

Determine whether your car uses front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive. This information is typically in your owner's manual.

Generously spread sand, rock salt, or cat litter onto the ground underneath the drive wheels of your car. If you don't have any of these materials on hand, you can consider using your car's floor mats as traction enhancers. Be prepared for them to be ruined by the attempt.

Letting some air out of the tires can increase the size of your contact patch just enough to improve your traction to the point where you can drive free. Be cautious; if you can visually detect the reduced air pressure by looking at your tires, you've probably let out too much. Once you're free, visit a service station and reinflate to the correct pressure as soon as possible.

If the car moves at all when power is applied to the wheels, and if you have enough room both in front of and behind the car, you may be able to build up enough momentum to free it from a snowbank. You can accomplish this by rocking the car back and forth, driving forward until you reach an impasse and then quickly shifting into reverse and repeating the process in the opposite direction. Be aware that this can place a great deal of strain on your transmission.

[Photo credit: Christian Guthier via Flickr, used under CC-BY-2.0 license]