Snowbanking

[fruitcakesa]

As most of you have discovered, winter is hard upon us and the snowbanking seaon has begun.
Well, my daughter had her first ever run in with one of them. Here is the story.
She was returning home, approaching a snowy hill at speed in order to get a good run up it, and was about halfway up when a car appeared coming down in her lane. She made the split second decision to put the Benz into the snowbank rather than the oncoming car. The offending driver kept right on going and she was buried to the front doors in the snow.
A good sam coming by stopped and managed to pull the car out but it slid across the road and became stuck tail in this time on the other side of the road. The good sam could not get it out so he brought her home.
I fired up the GMC plow truck with wheel chains and drove down and dragged it out and up the hill. She was then able to continue on home herself.
Now to the point of the story...the car sat in the driveway for the day and on a whim I thought I ought to give it a once over before it went back out. Hokey smokes...talk about snowpack!
I spent about an hour removing all the snow that had jammed up into every open space in the front end of the car, from the backside of the front bumper to the guiderod mounts at the firewall and halfway up the aux fan were completely full of snow.
Luckily it was soft and came out ok but if it had been neglected and had frozen, I shudder to think of the possibilities...slow or no steering jammed suspension, broken fan, overheating etc.
The only damage was the lower apron was slightly bent, I had concerns over the oil cooler lines and the like, but they were fine.
The lesson here is look before you drive after a snowbank experience.
There always is a first time and I am glad she was in the Benz.

[tankowner]

Back when I was in high school, snowbanking was actually a sport. A buddy of mine had an old beat-up Ford Courier that we used to drive around and slam snowbanks with. We had a good time and I think I actually learned a lot about driving in the snow that probably saved my butt once twice since then.

One thing to always make sure you clean the snow out of - - - the tailpipe.

Your daughter made a good choice, hope she wasn't too shaken up over it.

[kerry]

Good points. My nephew was driving his car during the Buffalo blizzard this past week and it started overheating from all the snow that had gotten packed behind the grill in front of the radiator.

[fruitcakesa]

No, she was cool about it
I put another 80# of cement in the trunk so she is good to go.
On a sidenote , later that evening, my wife and I went to a party and Jade was to come on her own later...which she did much later, after a no start situation that she remedied by herself in the dark by pumping the primer many cold fingered strokes until it finally started.
She came to me at the party and related the tale, and how she went from totally frustrated to proud of her stick-to-i-tiveness.
Benz builds character.

[Fulcrum525]

Sounds like the same storm that I was driving in a few days ago in Mass.

There is another area of concern that should be mentioned that almost happened to me. At one point on my highway drive a passing car suddenly threw a ton of snow onto my windshield. After a while I started to notice the temperature going a little high (Nothing crazy just higher then normal) That seemed odd since in was 25 degrees (f) out. I pulled over at the next rest stop to check things out. Unknown to me that passing car had also thrown enough slush to completely fill clog up the radiator grill.

[Hatterasguy]

Winter whats that? Its just raining in my neck of the woods.

Just reading story's like this makes me want to move to FL in the winter.

[tbomachines]

Sounds like your daughter made a good decision. On the first real snow of the season I've made a point of going out to an empty lot and testing out traction on whatever car I use as a daily driver...over the course of a year the tires can wear pretty bad depending on driving, and I'd rather find out snow traction in an empty lot than on the road coming up to a sharp turn...donuts are always fun too!

[moon161]

I put volvo 240 thru a snowbank once. Started to run warm the next morning when -20F out. Space between the grille & radiator was packed with snow & ice.