What To Do When Your Car Is Stuck in The Mud
It is not fun when your car gets stuck in the mud. You may try to keep your foot on the gas pedal while hoping your car will push itself off this slippery surface. But, unfortunately, it is not always this easy to get your car out of the mud. It requires a combination of strategy and creativity.
Here are the top 7 steps to help you get your car unstuck from the mud.
1. Stop Accelerating Excessively
When your car gets stuck in the mud, you’ll have a natural tendency to want to accelerate the vehicle with the gas pedal excessively. However, this could actually make your situation worse rather than better. If the tires spin on a slippery surface too quickly, they cannot grip the ground very well.
Accelerating could also dig your tires deeper into the mud. Meanwhile, the exterior of your vehicle will get covered with splattered mud, and it is just an ugly situation all around.
2. Inspect the Situation
Unfortunately, you’re going to have to get out of your car and inspect the tires and muddy surface below them. It will give you some perspective on the situation you’re dealing with here. Try to examine the depth of the tires inside of the muddy surface. Are all your tires stuck into the mud or just one or two tires? All of this information matters.
3. Remove Excess Weight from the Vehicle
Do you have other people in the vehicle? If so, ask them to get out of the vehicle and stand outside until the problem is over. Remove all heavy luggage or other loose items that add weight to the car. The idea is to make the car as light as possible to make it easier to move it out of the muddy surface.
4. Jack the Vehicle and Clear the Mud
Take your car jack and use it to raise the front left or right side of the vehicle (whichever side has the mud issue). Now you should have full access to the muddy surface underneath the tire.
Start scooping out the mud and other slippery debris with your hands or a shoveling tool. Finally, place a piece of cardboard, floor-mat, blanket, or some other flat, durable object underneath the tire.
Repeat this step for every other tire with a mud problem.
5. Put Something in Front of the Tires (Alternate Step)
Step #4 may seem extreme for a simple mud problem. A faster alternative would be to place the flat objects in front of the tires rather than jacking up the car and putting the objects underneath the tires. However, this alternative may not work as well on extremely muddy surfaces.
6. Keep Your Tires Straight and Accelerate
Rotate your steering wheel back to the middle so that the tires are centered and straight. Now gradually step on the gas pedal with your foot to accelerate the vehicle. You should notice some significant progress in getting the tires out of the mud. Perhaps you even succeeded in getting your vehicle released from the mud. In that case, good job!
7. Get Some People to Push the Back of the Vehicle
If you have some extra people around, ask them to push the back of the vehicle as you accelerate it. This little bit of extra strength can make a huge difference in releasing the car from the mud.
Conclusion
Every car and mud situation is different. But if you follow the steps above, you should be able to get your vehicle’s tires released from a muddy surface. Pushing the car, jack the car out of the mud, put an object under the tires, remove excess weight from the vehicle.
The worst-case scenario is that you’d have to call a tow truck company to come out to your location and pull the vehicle out of the mud for you. But if you have an emergency roadside service plan on your insurance policy, this service should be free.
