Practically Classics Forum

1) My Volvo (V40) is not a mud bogger.

2) Pressure washers quit just when you need them.

Did you forget that you weren't in the Jeep? that is a lot of brown sticky stuff, I hope you have hidden it from your Mrs!

looks like my wifes galaxy...in fact all the cars she's ever driven.....

Looks like pretty much any car that stays in the boonies, especially at this time of year so unless we're about to learn that it's actually a city car, where's the problem? A bit of nicely baked on mud should protect it at least as well as Ensis and several dozen times as well as Waxoyl, just let the slurry (I assume that's what it is?) set hard before you head for an area that uses salt!

It'll soon rain to wash it off

Its not slurry. It's a combination of slimy Essex clay and decades of horse byproduct.

Drove out to Roxwell to take the doggies for their walkies. Parked where i usually do at the edge of a field. Got back to the car only to realize that the ground was saturated and i was unable to reverse out up the slight incline. So my only way was forward, along the edge of the field, which has a 5 yard wide horse track for the local nags to canter along.

Careful application of 2nd (and 3rd) plus reverse gear got me moving, slip sliding along to where i knew there were exits out to the road, except they ware all upslopes! So i had to keep slithering along, trying exit after exit, until i was about 300 yards along from where i started.

I was coming up to a section where i knew it sloped down to the road, so i decided that was the best way out.

However... i then realized i was in a set of 'tramlines'. Tyre tracks that have been made by previous farmer type vehicles. Not deep, only a couple of inches. In my 'other' cars the tramlines would barely have registered, but in the Volvo, with its teeny tiny road tyres i was stuffed. So i continued to be forced forward, helplessly watching the tarmac 5 feet away slide by my window, until reached a point where the tramlines reduced to about an inch at i was able to turn toward the road.

I got to within about 2 feet before the car finally said enough and despite my best efforts my journey was over.

Fortunately, right then a couple of local blokes pulled up and gave me a gentle shove (while i was in the car, obviously!) and i was finally free!


Got back home, pulled out the pressure washer from the garage, hooked it up and it fired up. Then died. Nothing. Had it 10 years, and that evening was the evening it decided to keel over.

Had to rinse all the cr*p (literally) off the car with a regular hose with a spray nozzle.

Oh, and i lost my last remaining pair of reading glasses, somewhere along the 3 miles i'd traipsed with the dogs, in the dark. Until found the dogs were sitting on them, in the boot....


You gotta laugh.

A bit late now, but next time lose half the tyre pressure- you'll be straight out with no difficulty....I did this when I had my rover, with similar fat low profile tyres, and some ignorant moron in a huge X5 thingy charged straight down a rather steep and narrow and remote icy hill rather than letting the traffic that was half way up (i.e. me.....) continue to the top. I had to pull into the verge to let blunderboy pass and was hence stuck ........after about 5 mins of revving and spinning and sliding backwards, I hit upon letting quite a bit of air out, reduced the pressure to around 10psi or less, and the result was instant grip and straight up the hill

Mr Rusty is - as usual - quite right.

Years ago I was restoring a '77 Pontiac Trans-Am which was in a friend's garage a few miles away. The garage was about 100 yards down a steep muddy track, and while I could get my car there OK, in the winter I often had trouble getting my Pug 205GTI 1.9 out, with its wide low-ish profile tyres. So most times I did just that - let half to two-thirds of the air out, and then serenely drove out with no slipping at all. Then drove carefully down the hill to the local garage and used their air-line to top the tyres back up.

You should only do this with the driven wheels though, if you do it to the non-driven wheels you will increase their rolling resistance quite a bit which will be counter-productive.

Cheers!

Briefly considered that, (Been a 'froader for over 18 years now, i have picked up a few tricks. It's one of the reasons i converted my Wrangler AC pump into an onboard air compressor) but decided that any further reduction in ground clearance was a bad thing. Was already dragging the belly in places. On the road would have worked (as in your two examples), but when the tyres are already sunk into tramlines, and digging holes...

And another tip, take it to the local supermarket power wash, leave all the crap on their drive instead!!