Digging out of snow with a low torque engine.

[AI13]

I live in Alaska and so driving in snow is a fact of life. This is my first year trying to drive a manual in the snow/ice however, and my 2013 Forrester's clutch is paying the price for it. The problem that I am running into is that the engine just cannot seem to deliver any torque to the wheels before it stalls. If I don't keep the revs up (over 1k), I am about half a second away from stalling, doing so doesn't smell good at all though. I have only done it a couple of times so far, and I am very worried (read: positive) that I am glazing my clutch plate doing so.

My questions are as follows:
1. How to get going from a position of stuck with an engine that does not develop much torque. No-gas starts do not work in the snow.
2. What is the best thing to do when the wheels are literally frozen in place? (I am glad no one was next to me when I started this morning, I imagine that there was a small explosion of ice from my wheels.
3. How can I avoid burning the clutch?
4. Backing up, toward obstacles, through dense half frozen snow, up a hill. How in the heck do I do that?

I have tried turning traction control off and it only seems to help marginally, the problem is not a lack of traction, but a seeming excess of it. The most effective things that I have managed so far are to just keep backing up and ramming the snow until I can get through it, which is fine and all, except when that snow is around me at stop.

I am a bit out of my league here, I could use all the help you fine folks can offer.

Thanks.

[AHTOXA]

You actually don't want a whole lot of torque in low traction situations.

- if your wheels are frozen, then break the ice around the tires first. Put down salt or kitty litter to either melt the snow or gain traction.
- if traction is limited, start off in second great to limit torque going down to the wheels. This will help with not spinning the wheels as much.
- slipping the clutch will happen more when the vehicle is stuck and you have to rock it out, that's just a fact of life as compared with regular starts. Will that kill your clutch prematurely after this happens once or twice? Probably not.

[AI13]

Breaking the ice is definitely a good idea. I thought I had got everything this morning, but the crack of ice I heard setting off let me know I missed something.

Slipping the clutch once or twice might not be too bad, unfortunately I have done it 4 times just trying to get the car to rock. It simply does not seem to want to move at anything less than 800 rpm, and I am honestly not good enough yet to keep it there without stalling it in the snow.

The rest of the advice is definitely sound, however my problem is the wheels not turning. I wish they were spinning.

[daleadbull]

I don't have any personal experience with being stuck in snow/ice and having to rock your way out.

But if you want to do that without burning your clutch, just dial in more revs than you normally would then release the clutch like you normally would. If you get the wheels to spin, then that means you have obviously not stalled. So keep modulating throttle to get out. Of course if you get moving without spinning tires, that's good as well.

If you are having trouble spinning your tires then make sure traction control is off.

[AHTOXA]

Breaking the ice is definitely a good idea. I thought I had got everything this morning, but the crack of ice I heard setting off let me know I missed something.

Slipping the clutch once or twice might not be too bad, unfortunately I have done it 4 times just trying to get the car to rock. It simply does not seem to want to move at anything less than 800 rpm, and I am honestly not good enough yet to keep it there without stalling it in the snow.

The rest of the advice is definitely sound, however my problem is the wheels not turning. I wish they were spinning.

More revs and quicker clutch release. Since you're in snow and want wheel spin, you can do that w/o breaking anything on the car.

[IMBoring25]

Why would you want wheelspin? Wheelspin on snow digs a hole. Wheelspin on ice polishes the surface. Some of my favorite tricks:

Rock the vehicle. Especially when you've made yourself ruts, rhythmically applying torque then releasing it as you run out of momentum to get a little further out of the hole each time is powerful.

Go the wrong way. If you can't go the way you want to go, get the vehicle to move any way it will and re-strategize or take a running go at the spot that's giving you trouble.

Take a break. Every couple seconds of steady clutch slip or 5-6 seconds of pulsed clutch slip, I try to stop and let the clutch cool down a bit.

Item 2) That was probably your parking brake. Some park without the brake but in gear and against a curb in the direction of the prevailing slope when conditions favor parking brake freeze.

Item 4) You really have to guess well how much running start you need. Being willing to try repeatedly should give you better surface on subsequent attempts. Ideally, you would do something else. What is the scenario in which this is necessary?

[AI13]

I only want wheel-spin because I would prefer it to the smell of burnt clutch. I am gripping pretty well in the snow, its just I am not going anywhere once I have gripped. Item 4 is a requirement to park outside my apartment. I hadn't thought about a frozen brake, I will stop putting it on, leaving it in gear instead.

[theholycow]

1. How to get going from a position of stuck with an engine that does not develop much torque. No-gas starts do not work in the snow.

What was your strategy with automatic? It may be possible to do something similar.

2. What is the best thing to do when the wheels are literally frozen in place? (I am glad no one was next to me when I started this morning, I imagine that there was a small explosion of ice from my wheels.

Been there done that. Use the steering wheel to break the front wheels free. Turning it from lock to lock after the fronts are free will pivot the car slightly and MAY help put some pressure on the rears but probably won't break them free. Then it's time to either abuse the clutch (high RPM, partial clutch dump that almost stalls the engine, repeat as necessary) or get out of the car and melt/break the ice (heat gun, hair dryer, hot water, alcohol, salt, whatever).

What have you done in the same situation with automatic?

3. How can I avoid burning the clutch?

You might not be able to. Obviously you don't want to burn it to death, but in extreme conditions it's going to get some abuse.

4. Backing up, toward obstacles, through dense half frozen snow, up a hill. How in the heck do I do that?

Use whatever RPM is necessary and modulate your clutch to keep traction. That's well within what the engineers who designed your car expected you to do with it, and is not abusive (unless you're so un-practiced that you don't do it well, but you'll improve).

[IMBoring25]

If you're backing uphill to a parking space, use the brake and deal with the consequences. You never want the car held in place only one way.

[watkins]

800-1000 rpm isnt exactly a lot

[AI13]

Thanks for all of the advice, I will let you know how it goes. From what i see at the Forrester forums Subaru clutches are prone to smelling burnt, although the majority of the forum goers don't live in AK. At 1.5k rpm and up, the clutch starts smelling, below and I quickly dump the clutch.

[tankinbeans]

Are you driving through heaping mounds of snow when you're parking? It's possible you're freezing big ice chunks to the brake rotors, thus preventing your wheels spinning. This has happened to me before.

Oh, and welcome to the forum.

[ClutchFork]

Without having read all the posts, I'll note that if you are spinning one wheel in snow or on ice, you can get out easily by throwing a handfull of sand under that wheel, but if there is snow pack in front you need to dig that out first. Then once you get a little momentum, keep it going.

[Squint]

Others have answered your questions better than I could, just welcome to the forum! Let us know how it goes.

[AI13]

Ok, so after a strangely long period of no snow I have finally had a chance to try everything and I have found what seems to be a viable solution. http://www.quickmeme.com/img/08/08b761c ... 5bfdf9.jpg It turns out I was just being way too cautious with the throttle. The first two times I tried moving in the snow, (by revving to 800-1500 rpm then letting the clutch out) I got a smell that was quite foul, the third time the smell was still bad, but barely notice. Now when I do that, I smell nothing. My car is quite new (months in fact) so that could have contributed to the disappearing smell. But back on topic. It seems to me that the best solution for getting unstuck is just more power. Get the clutch to catch and then hit the accelerator, let off the clutch and if you need to stop, remember that you are having trouble moving in the first place, stopping will be easy.

I really didn't expect that to picture to have already been made but it was. In fact it was the 12th image result for "clarkson power". Thanks for the help everyone.