Learned a few neat new things today about extricating my BMW from the mud on a one-lane curvy road in the Santa Cruz Mountains!
We've had some pretty good (i.e., stormy) weather lately here in the Silicon Valley so I grabbed my camera for a long drive in the mountains to find a nice new spot to hike in the rain (which I love to do) - and - instantly realized my mistake as soon as I tried to park off to the side of an unfamiliar windy road.
The moment the front wheels left the pavement, my bimmer mired itself nose down into the mud on the wet slippery steeply downhill slope!
The amazing thing was the unexpectedly total and unequivocal lack of traction!
Funny thing was that I was mired in the mud even before either of the rear wheels left the pavement. They just spun uselessly as I tried to back out uphill. Disabling DSC had absolutely no effect!
So I tried to use forward downhill momentum to power out of the mud moving downhill and away from the slope.
Didn't work.
Luckily, AAA has an "extrication provision", where you're apparently allowed only one driver and one extraction truck (I had not realized that extrication isn't towing, per se ... at least not in their book).
Problem was the car couldn't be pulled forward as it had nosed into the hill - yet it would have been dangerous to pull backward due to the uphill slope, slick one-lane road, and nearby curves and cliffs.
So he pulled it sideways!
I learned something new as I had never been towed sideways before!
What else I learned from the very friendly tow truck operator was that he NEVER uses the tow hook when extracting a BMW sideways ... he used this cloth contraption that he bought from a crane operator to pull out sideways from the wheels. Said the tow hook will tear the car apart when pulled sideways.
He said the wheels are the strongest point of the vehicle when pulling sideways!
It was also non intuitive to me that the tow truck operator locked the front wheel in place by setting the steering lock and then firmly set the parking brake and put the transmission into the park position.
Too bad I didn't carry my snow chains!
Lesson learned!
We've had some pretty good (i.e., stormy) weather lately here in the Silicon Valley so I grabbed my camera for a long drive in the mountains to find a nice new spot to hike in the rain (which I love to do) - and - instantly realized my mistake as soon as I tried to park off to the side of an unfamiliar windy road.
The moment the front wheels left the pavement, my bimmer mired itself nose down into the mud on the wet slippery steeply downhill slope!
The amazing thing was the unexpectedly total and unequivocal lack of traction!
Funny thing was that I was mired in the mud even before either of the rear wheels left the pavement. They just spun uselessly as I tried to back out uphill. Disabling DSC had absolutely no effect!
So I tried to use forward downhill momentum to power out of the mud moving downhill and away from the slope.
Didn't work.
Luckily, AAA has an "extrication provision", where you're apparently allowed only one driver and one extraction truck (I had not realized that extrication isn't towing, per se ... at least not in their book).
Problem was the car couldn't be pulled forward as it had nosed into the hill - yet it would have been dangerous to pull backward due to the uphill slope, slick one-lane road, and nearby curves and cliffs.
So he pulled it sideways!
I learned something new as I had never been towed sideways before!
What else I learned from the very friendly tow truck operator was that he NEVER uses the tow hook when extracting a BMW sideways ... he used this cloth contraption that he bought from a crane operator to pull out sideways from the wheels. Said the tow hook will tear the car apart when pulled sideways.
He said the wheels are the strongest point of the vehicle when pulling sideways!
It was also non intuitive to me that the tow truck operator locked the front wheel in place by setting the steering lock and then firmly set the parking brake and put the transmission into the park position.
Too bad I didn't carry my snow chains!
Lesson learned!