First Recovery

[FordyceCreekTrail]

Last night actually. Left for an out of town job yesterday morning, get down the highway and I get the dreaded call....Wife forgot that our home is in 4x4 only zone these days and an employee got stuck in her van coming for some forms. She got her out and down the hill. Employee took a running start and floored it up the hill, and could not make it. Wife hooked up to her with the Four runner and even with rear diff lock on the van slid into a tree.(nasty tail gate dent) Wife went and got the Titan, had to jump start it. Brought it back up the hill for the employee to take to a job, got out and......shut it off. Walked home to get the Four Runner to come back and jump start the Titan.

I got home at 6:00PM, winched her part way up out of trouble but with the snow and ice she could not do a thing, so I slowly backed up the mountain(around a nasty bend so a long winching would have been a pain involving a snatch block), even locked up I had to jerk her one time a bit to get going again, dragged to top of mountain. Take Titan home, bring back her to go home in van. Geesh, as bad as spending all day on Thompson Hill.

Lessons learned; Never leave home, No 2wd on my snowy hill, Winch is handy,( easier then a strap if all else fails), Back up camera is nice in a situation like this, however confusing in snow and dark.

[ramv]

Also with winch, I have seen front axle components break during recoveries in reverse. Winch is much safer/reliable.

[DamageWagon]

Also with winch, I have seen front axle components break during recoveries in reverse. Winch is much safer/reliable.

Yes. Factually. Ring gears are enormously weaker on their ‘coast’ side. It is very easy to break the teeth off entirely on the ring gear by loading the truck in reverse. Winch and service brakes are your friend, your axle will thank you.

[13BlkPowerWagon]

Don't know how you were setup, but pulling out of a ditch is always difficult as like you said, the car wants to stay down there... If it's possible, hook a chain, strap, whatever to the back of that vehicle to an anchor on the high side of the ditch, perpendicular(ish) to how you'll pull them out. This will give you a point on the side that as you pull, will help pull the back end of the vehicle up the hill/ditch as well.

[FordyceCreekTrail]

Never had trouble pulling in reverse before, but I have heard that. I think a light weight mini van would be ok though. Its crazy too, you can practically leave it in neutral to winch its so heavy

[Colibri]

2wagons blew up his front ring gear doing a snatch recovery on a f350 in reverse.

[KevinABQ]

Yikes!