Car won't move forward or backward in the driveway due to being stuck in snow ~ What's the solution?

Do you have any cardboard? You can place that behind the front wheels (or in front of depending on which way the car is facing).

It sounds like you’re on ice if the snow is out of the way. Got any rock salt? It melts the ice.

Second thought. How much snow do you have? You may have highsided the car. There’s so much snow under the car its not letting the tires have sufficent grip on the pavement.

Sometimes I have found that table salt, liberally applied fore and aft will provide some traction, and help melt.

Throw some old carpet under the tires. I have a few extra carpet squares in my trunk if you need them.

There was about 10 inches – it was not that high.

I live in NY by CT (Putnam County NY).

Ten inches is a lot for the car to push through. Try clearing all the snow out from under the front of the car as far back as you can reach.

LOL @worriedguy : it looks like I was telling you where i live so you can come bring the carpet – you and I were writing at the same time!

Carpet. Wood 2×4 pieces at least 3 feet long work too. Jam them under with a hammer.
Make sure nobody is behind you as they will fly out when you break free.

Hang tight It will take me 6 hours to get there…

@Adirondackwannabe : I did shovel all around the tires. What I am going to do now is put my pants back on, go outside with some Lord and Taylor gift boxes and some table salt (I have to check basement to see if i have snow salt but i don’t think so) and try again.

I have been giving you all GA’s, by the way…..

Try clearing all of the snow all over under the front of the car, not just the tires. And keep dressed. It’s cold. :)

When I lived in a snowy area, I once used the floor mats. I placed them under the tires for traction, and it worked.

I still think it sounds like a snow day.

You may have high centered your car. Get down and look under the car. If the underside of the car is resting on the snow, it could be preventing enough weight bearing on the tires to provide traction.

If this is the case you can either get down on your hands and knees and dig out under the car, or wait for a tow/push.

The average midsize car in the US has a ground clearance of about 8 inches, so 10 inches of snow could be enough to lift the tires off the road.

@hawaii_jake : Wow, that floor mat idea is great! Thanks, I’ll remember that. I love how Mr Tropical has such a great idea!

Depending on the size of your car and the size of your friends, it may be simplest to just pick the car up and move it. My whole family is very large (I’m 6’5” and the size and shape of a refrigerator) and we’ve done the trick with picking up cars a few times when someone has boxed us in while parking. If it’s a small car and you have five or six people, you’ll each only be lifting a few hundred pounds a few inches, not at all a herculean task.

Sounds like you should stay home, or walk if you need to get some place, and not drive and get the car stuck farther from home. If you move it, I suggest moving it further into your driveway.

This is the Seattle philosophy, where it usually only seriously snows once or twice each year.

@jca Let us know how you made out.

Some other good traction aids:

Fireplace / grill ashes (can also help to melt the snow, but they’ll make a terrible mess when tracked back in the house)
Uncooked rice

I hate to suggest it, and I’ve never tried it myself, but I would think that old hardcover books would work well, too. (I have a few that I’ll donate.)

But I’m not driving over from the Hartford area. Maybe @worriedguy can pick them up on his way through.

Kitty litter? Kicking the snow/frozen slush from around your tires?

If all else fails… I would definately invite @SmashTheState over. Plus, his family sounds like lots of fun.

I had some old corduroys that I had just thrown out, so i cut them up. I also got the Lord and Taylor gift box. i put the corduroys behind the tires, and slipped the box pieces under the front of the tires. it still took a minute and some wheel turning to get a grip, but then it worked. i went to Trader Joe’s and when i returned i did some shoveling. I also parked the car nearer to the street, facing the street, so the tires can maybe grip the street when i go out next.

Thank you all for your great answers!

My Dad used to use old coveralls.

The most common thing that got me stuck was high-centering. I carried a thick, long stick in my car for the sole purpose of knocking/scooping enough snow out from under my car to let it’s weight rest on the tires as opposed to the undercarriage. You get much better traction when your tires are actually on the ground!

For the future: from your description it sounds as if you were using CLUMPING cat litter (made from clay).

The cat litter advice was from olden times before clumping litter was on the market as an option. Clumping litter under the tires is a big no-no as it just makes everything slicker, not grippier because it’s clay.

Buy a 10 lb. bag of the old-fashioned kind (they still carry it, but you just have to look a little more carefully since some clumping litter is also in bags) and keep it in the trunk for snow emergencies. Plus the added weight in the rear may help slightly to give you better traction.

@Buttonstc: Actually, it was not clumping litter. it was regular litter. I think the spinning tires, heating up the snow and turning it to mush with the clay litter is why the litter got clay-like.

i tried clumping litter for my cats a few times, and i found it would make a muddy mess in the bottom of the litter box, and then i had to throw it all out, so i now buy just regular litter.

@Buttonstc I have found that the added weight is quite often a bad thing. Most of my cars have been FWD but well balanced enough to keep the unpowered rear end under control as long as there was not much weight back there. A full trunk or a passenger in the back seat made them tail-heavy enough that I would lose traction in the ass end. The only exception was my old 2nd-gen Golf, which was nose-heavy enough that it almost fell off a chassis lift more than once. That thing needed a bit of ballast. On the other hand the old AE82 Corollas like mine have a better weight distribution than some (alleged) sports cars, so they handle great when things get slippery.