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Geek Culture / Snow advice

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Dazzag
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 13:41
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Ok so my car is stuck in our community car park behind our house because of the snow and because my car is an M3 (massive amounts of power and only real wheel drive) it isn't really moving. Main roads are ok, it's just getting the car to them. My bird's car is even worse (Lotus Elise) so thats not even an option. I managed to move the car about 6 foot tops before lots of tyre slipping etc.

So I'd like to get the car out before march, so any advice for a quick solution? Digging it out is taking forever (snow comes up to my front spoiler) to move inches. We thought dishwasher salt, but dunno.

Just thought I would post here thanks to multi-international community here who deal with this sort of thing all the time I would imagine.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 13:49
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Welcome back to Britain.

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HowDo
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 13:51
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some say that cat litter can work as grit, or a bit of carpet.

failing that its back breaking work with the shovel.

Dark Physics makes any hot drink go cold.
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Shaun Of The Dead
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 14:02
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Put wood panels under the wheels, Drive onto them. Move forward. Put another two infront, repeat.

Otherwise use grit or salt.

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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 14:20
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Deflate the tires slightly. This gives them more surface area and more purchase on the snow, for some reason.

[center]Literally nobody who isn't a retard is talking about 2012. -Drew Cameron
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lazerus
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 14:21
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Carpet trick works when stuck in sand and mud too. The wonders of carpet.

Put carpet underneath the back and frount wheels. crawl it out, you go flat out- well its not going to be pretty when you catch grip.


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Drew Cameron
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:06
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Put ash from a fire under the wheels, or carpet.

Don't use a kettle cause it just makes it worse when it freezes again.

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Oolite
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:12
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My car was stuck our little shared carpark for nearly a week, i deflated the tires a little and got the shovel out. Digging out isn't a problem, just dig out two rough tire tracks, It didn't really take me long, but i wish i hadn't. Turned out there was quite thick ice underneath most of the snow and the snow itself had more grip. I work part time as a delivery driver so i know how much of a pain the roads are, Especially in 7t vans.
Don't bother with salting it, unless you get some proper stuff its going to be a waste of time. If you can, go to one of the grit stations at the side of the road with a bucket and use that.
Unless you have quite a steep hill to get up you should be able to smoothly get across it by riding the clutch, forget about the accelerator for the moment. It bugs me no end to see people raping the power to get up an icy hill...

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Fallout
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:27
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I second carpet. Use your floor mats, unless you love them too much. Just take the front ones out and stick them in front of the rear wheels.

Otherwise, if you have an electric compressor to pump your tyres up quickly, deflate them so they look flat. Loads more grip. Inflate them when you get to the good roads.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:29
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Quote: " my car is an M3 (massive amounts of power and only real wheel drive"

Hahahahaha........ I know how you feel, and I have even more power than an M3. Though it probably helps mine weighs a 1/4 ton more. I would've have even tried the Lotus in the snow, probably sits even lower.

Quote: "(snow comes up to my front spoiler"

I'd call the community and complain. Don't they have plows where you live? Then again, they could be smart like our drivers and just plow the parking lot. Sounds nice, and I'm sure it was for those who park outside in the low. But for those of us that pay extra for the garage space, it wasn't a pleasant sight seeing all that snow plowed up against my door. 2 hours to get my car out, and I had the flu.

kitty litter, sand, gravel, cinders, anything to get you some grip. I was in the poconos a year ago and noticed they put cinders all over the roads. Which really pissed me off because there wasn't any ice on the mountain sides yet, which meant all I did was slip at every stop sign.

We have a few inches of snow already on the roads, and while getting started is a little slow, my TC works wonders. I'd even say my grip feels better than a fwd car.

Quote: "Put wood panels under the wheels, Drive onto them"

Good in theory and all, but have you actually tried this before? How exactly are you going to get the wood under the wheels? And wood is slippery when wet.


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" ~ Arthur C. Clarke
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Dazzag
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:32
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Quote: "Welcome back to Britain"
Yep. 22c in Cyprus at the minute...

Thanks for the advice guys. Carpet might just work well considering it turns out we don't have a spade. I'll give it more of a go tomorrow. Is well annoying as I can see the road out the front of the house looks really pretty fine. Grr, sodding rubbish weather and council.

Personally I think we should do what the Scottish government apparently do; make people doing community service (and possibly jailed convicts) sort out all the roads, including the side roads and the like. Honestly they are probably all warm watching Sky sports and playing on PS3s (or so I heard on probably very biased radio channel).

Quote: "If you can, go to one of the grit stations at the side of the road with a bucket and use that"
Grit stations? Do we have those on the UK? First I've heard of them. According to the paper most councils are running out of grit. Even though the government had a report on how to cope better with this sort thing since last summer (thanks to last years pretty harsh cold snap).

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Dazzag
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:38
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Quote: "I would've have even tried the Lotus in the snow, probably sits even lower"
And then some. Really really low.

Quote: "Don't they have plows where you live?"
Yeah, sort of. But this is a private road with a private car park. They leave you to rot basically. And because this is a sort of once in a decade thing (normally bad for a day then forget about it) then we don't really have the cover that some countries do. But the government also leaves it to the local councils to sort out, and a lot of them don't bother too much because of the costs. Not good.

Quote: "deflate them so they look flat. Loads more grip"
I've heard this before, although I'm not sure about mine. They are 19" extremely low profile efforts so I'm not sure how much they can go down.

Luckily I can work from home, but typically with supposedly cutting edge 21st century software houses they frown on it a fair bit if quite a few days are taken off. They think if you are working from home then you are obviously not working much. Don't know what they thought I was doing working from home in Cyprus for them for almost 2 years...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Melancholic
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:41
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Quote: "Grit stations? Do we have those on the UK?"


Nope, well not where i lived, unless they are maintained by private companys, you usually see them ins palces such as tesco's car park.
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 15:52 Edited at: 9th Jan 2010 15:53
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Quote: "According to the paper most councils are running out of grit. "


According to our local council, "yeah, we have LOADS of grit to keep you through the summer", yet like each year, they don't grit our road, which is pretty cheeky because they charge people in my village higher council tax than most, yet rarely do anything because it's small and thus holds little priority over it.

I suppose you could go to the supermarket and bye a crate of salt...though I suppose going to the supermarket is the trouble...go to Tesco online and ask for a delivery of 1,000 packs of salt...that is...if normal salt does the job, if not, then you've wasted a lot of money. Still, you'll need not worry about finding salt on your chips for life.

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the_winch
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 17:26
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Should be easy enough to push out if you know what you are doing. Just keep rocking it forward and backwards it'll move eventually.

Or just find someone with a Subaru to tow it out.

By way of demonstration, he emitted a batlike squeak that was indeed bothersome.
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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 17:27
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I think a German friend of mine said they don't use salt on the roads in Hamburg because of the environmental damage it does.

Does anyone here from Germany know if that's true? And, if it is, how do they manage in the snow? There must be a better solution available than poisoning our ground water with salt.
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Outscape
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Posted: 9th Jan 2010 18:13
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you could always just blame it on the government that it snows every so often.


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Oolite
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Posted: 10th Jan 2010 20:30
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Forgot about the m3s low profile tires, probably not an option then. The only other thing i can think of is getting the person who maintains the houses/car park to sort out something out. My landlord lives in the same apartment as me and he still hasn't sorted anything out, so i'm not sure how much help that'd be.

There are still grit stations around, unfortunately the water got into the one around the corner and its all messed up, not to mention people use it as a bin for all types of stuff.

Although it seems to me that all this time spent figuring out a problem is wasted, because you could have dug out by now...

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 10th Jan 2010 21:14
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Quote: "And, if it is, how do they manage in the snow?"


They're not useless retards like the British and have a shred of driving talent? Have you ever been to Germany? It really does put our horrid driving as a nation to shame.

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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 10th Jan 2010 21:25
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Well, I can tell why you're not a travel advertiser NeX

[center]Literally nobody who isn't a retard is talking about 2012. -Drew Cameron
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El Goorf
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Posted: 10th Jan 2010 23:20
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I just got back from a ski resort, where it snowed 20cm each night, people would wake up to find their cars literally buried to the point where if you don't remember the exact spot you parked, you're stuffed. Granted the plows worked through the night to keep roads clear, people in the uk ask why we come to a standstill when the rest of europe seems immune to blizzards. The answer is they got off their *rses, reached for a shovel and dug.

britain: man the f up.

Quote: "I think a German friend of mine said they don't use salt on the roads in Hamburg because of the environmental damage it does."


probably snow chains. another thing besides shovels which brits don't seem to have heard of.

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Diru
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Posted: 10th Jan 2010 23:27
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We all complain how the government aren't ready for snow. But face it, it snows here for about a week a year, and if the government spent money on snow ploughs and the like, we would complain they are wasting money.
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 10th Jan 2010 23:40
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We complain because we're British and we don't know how to do anything else.

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General Jackson
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 02:30
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Aww man you have a PROBLEM

Anyway a tractor helped my mom and I when we slid off the road into all sorts of snow with our whimpy truck


We couldnt even open our doors

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Jeku
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 06:10 Edited at: 11th Jan 2010 06:11
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I have driven my dad's company van off the highway at 120km an hour and slammed it into deep snow. It was completely buried, and we luckily saw a snow plow nearby. He pulled the van up the embankment, and the van worked. After a few minutes we smelled some bad smell coming from the air intake system, and when we popped open the hood we saw that the engine was completely encased in a solid block of snow and ice The snow came in through the grill with such force that it filled every little square inch of space in the engine compartment. Ahhh... that experience was scary as hell and we very nearly could have been killed.


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Benjamin
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 06:18
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Quote: "I have driven my dad's company van off the highway at 120km an hour and slammed it into deep snow."


Always a good idea to drive fast on slippery roads.
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Jeku
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 07:16 Edited at: 11th Jan 2010 07:21
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Quote: "Always a good idea to drive fast on slippery roads"


The road wasn't slippery That was the Canadian north, near mile 0 on the Alaskan highway, where it snows 8 months of the year, so the highway conditions were fine. It was blue sky even.

I wanted to pull over and take off my jacket, and my dad told me to keep driving and he'll grab the wheel (not a good idea). Something happened and I ended up yanking the wheel all the way to the right.


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Benjamin
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 13:54 Edited at: 11th Jan 2010 13:55
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Quote: "That was the Canadian north, near mile 0 on the Alaskan highway, where it snows 8 months of the year, so the highway conditions were fine. It was blue sky even."


Yeah, I had a feeling the road itself was kept free of snow/ice. I don't think anyone would try doing such speeds on an icy road!

Either way, yikes, that sounds pretty scary.
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MSon
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 14:38
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Im considering boiling the kettle and poring it on the outside path to clear it as i don't have a shovel to clear it.

Everyone Be Cool, You, Be Cool.
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 11th Jan 2010 17:58
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Quote: "Quote: "And, if it is, how do they manage in the snow?"

They're not useless retards like the British and have a shred of driving talent? Have you ever been to Germany? It really does put our horrid driving as a nation to shame."


I have and yes, I'll concur that they're good drivers, though I think they're taught differently. It can be scary getting into a Germany taxi for the first time, they really pelt it up the Auto-Bahn (but they're safe, which feels odd), but then unlike British taxis they're not paid for time, but distance - so they get more money by being fast and efficient and not driving straight into traffic. The driver said he'd get us to our destination for 100 euros and he did and pretty quickly.

On British driving and as a pedestrian, I ask that people in the UK learn to indicate. Still...to be the optimistic Brit in this thread, at least we're not pedestrians or drivers in India. I'd fear for my life crossing the road. So it could be worse.

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 12th Jan 2010 18:44
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Quote: "probably snow chains. another thing besides shovels which brits don't seem to have heard of."


The buses in Brighton are using snow chains to get to some of the estates that aren't gritted. What's wrong with the rest of you?
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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 12th Jan 2010 18:46
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Quote: "at least we're not pedestrians or drivers in India"

Or indeed Indonesia. Good god, that place is awful for traffic.

[center]Literally nobody who isn't a retard is talking about 2012. -Drew Cameron
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