Re:The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans
by pengaru on Monday February 06, 2023 @07:05PM
(#34686480)
I dunno man, if there's a functioning jack and floor mats you can generally worst-case inchworm the vehicle out.
The advantage of sand is you can easily shuffle it around even with bare hands. It takes time and labor, you'll get filthy and sweaty, but just keep making little mounds under the tires like four ramps with the floor mats under the tires. Use the jack one corner at a time to make these mounds under them. It'll gradually make progress in the direction you desire, gravity assisting.
I often help tourists out of washes near my desert cabin, being surrounded by airbnbs, it's a comically regular occurrence around there.
They tend to get frustrated and give up very quickly, after what efforts they made only worsened things by fixating on digging out the tires (?!?!?), neglecting to realize the underbody is completely beached on the ground. But it requires actually getting down on the ground and filthy to even see the real problem at the underside, sometimes requiring substantial digging just to get at that.
One thing that is genuinely problematic though; VW/Audi likes to use a weird half-scissor jack that's basically useless in sand/gravel/dirt, anything loose. It just scoops the ground like a shovel instead of lifting the car. The ubiquitous Japanese compact scissor jacks are far superior.
The advantage of sand is you can easily shuffle it around even with bare hands. It takes time and labor, you'll get filthy and sweaty, but just keep making little mounds under the tires like four ramps with the floor mats under the tires. Use the jack one corner at a time to make these mounds under them. It'll gradually make progress in the direction you desire, gravity assisting.
I often help tourists out of washes near my desert cabin, being surrounded by airbnbs, it's a comically regular occurrence around there.
They tend to get frustrated and give up very quickly, after what efforts they made only worsened things by fixating on digging out the tires (?!?!?), neglecting to realize the underbody is completely beached on the ground. But it requires actually getting down on the ground and filthy to even see the real problem at the underside, sometimes requiring substantial digging just to get at that.
One thing that is genuinely problematic though; VW/Audi likes to use a weird half-scissor jack that's basically useless in sand/gravel/dirt, anything loose. It just scoops the ground like a shovel instead of lifting the car. The ubiquitous Japanese compact scissor jacks are far superior.