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Icy Hill

Mikev5521

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Hey All,

Newbie again here, drove up an icy hill started to slide back. I put it in 4WD and made it but how about when I go down the hill? Any advice would be appreciated.
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redsyphon

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When I lived in the mountains with my TJ I would do the following in the winter ice storms to make it down into town: Throw into 2WD, Press Skinny Petal On Floor, Place Hand on E-Brake, Use Steering Wheel With Sharp 90deg turns (Only allowed when coordinating with E-Brake Pulls), also and this is important, Saftey Third!

Ignore everything written above and put her in 4WD. Operate at a safe speed. If you want to crawl down then 4LO will get you the lower crawl ratio, but I wouldn't use it heavily on bare roads especially if there are sharp turns.

If it's pure ice, then avoid the route if possible as steering may be decided by the whims of the ice and any weight shifted due to off camber butt clenching from drivers seat.
 
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Mikev5521

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When I lived in the mountains with my TJ I would do the following in the winter ice storms to make it down into town: Throw into 2WD, Press Skinny Petal On Floor, Place Hand on E-Brake, Use Steering Wheel With Sharp 90deg turns (Only allowed when coordinating with E-Brake Pulls), also and this is important, Saftey Third!

Ignore everything written above and put her in 4WD. Operate at a safe speed. If you want to crawl down then 4LO will get you the lower crawl ratio, but I wouldn't use it heavily on bare roads especially if there are sharp turns.

If it's pure ice, then avoid the route if possible as steering may be decided by the whims of the ice and any weight shifted due to off camber butt clenching from drivers seat.
Thank you so much Red!
 

sf5211

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Sometimes thereā€™s nothing you can do. Just YouTube ā€œcars sliding down icy roadsā€. Thereā€™s plenty of them. I donā€™t care if youā€™ve got 18 wheel drive. Those vehicles arenā€™t stopping until they finally hit an obstacle. Itā€™s usually a pack of cars that slid before them.
 

MaineBumpkin

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I live on a hill in Maine and every time I see a crash on this hill (many over 50+ years) the biggest contributor (aside from ice and snow) is speed. Slow down before you crest the top in anticipation of slick conditions. Itā€™s much easier to add a little acceleration if conditions are good than it is to slow down if conditions are bad. Apply gentle braking and pump the brakes if you need to. Anti-lock brakes (IMO) are useless on ice, pumping the brakes properly always works better for me. Also, if you lose it, losing it into the shoulder or snow bank is normally cheaper than sliding into another car šŸ˜œ
 

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MrMischief

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best way down an icy hill is to keep the tires rolling, that will be your best chance for traction. You don't want the tires to lock up and you don't want them to spin, just rolling. Don't touch the brakes. 4 low, first gear, very gentle on the accelerator. Start slow at the top, you don't want to be trying to reduce speed once you're on the hill. You can easily add speed if conditions dictate that you should either with more throttle or changing to different gear, but it is very risky to try to reduce speed.
 

Adventure.AS

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Install tire chains if the icy hill is the only route up and down. (You can get chains that are designed for on/off road use, or even mud.)

If possible try to put your passenger side tires onto the shoulder, where the snow isn't packed down to ice. This will provide more traction for steering and braking. As mentioned above never lock up the wheels with too aggressive braking as the wheels need to be rotating to have any chance at steering on ice.
 
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roaniecowpony

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I've never had anything help on ice other than chains. I suppose studded tires would work too. Just never had the need to drive in ice enough to justify studded tires.
 

Badweissenbier

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Going down icy hill with limited to no traction.
2wd, just the drag of the power train can be enough to cause one to loose traction, 4low enhances that. 4 low is great for holdback but thatā€™s only if you have traction
Sliding the back 2 is better than all 4 because your wheels were all locked together and creating a great rolling resistance. Also 4 low disables some of the electronic aids.

As all have said start slow!!!

ride the shoulder if available (non cleaned and rougher surfaces give better traction)

As others have said when you start sliding let off the brakes! Rolling tires steer locked ones donā€™t
 

Dan M.

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As stated above nothing will work on straight up ice. However, I have a very steep driveway and when it is slick with snow and some ice I use hill decent control. Put it in four low and push the hill descent control button (it looks like a Jeep going down a hill) by the climate control buttons. You then use the gear selector (assuming automatic here) to control how fast you want to go in .6 MPH intervals. I've used it several times and it works great. Granted you might want to be careful if you have traffic behind you as you will be moving very slow, but if you're out by yourself this will work every time.
 

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Cuyose

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This is a perfect thread for me to say DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE HILL DECENT CONTROL! The above poster might not have been on ice or a steep enough hill, but hill decent uses the brakes to control the speed. This will 100% lock up your tires on ice and hill decent will not recover it for you, but make it more difficult to give it manual inputs.

The best thing is to just be in 4 wheel drive, not for the ice hill, but for the escape path you should eye out on the way down. Go for the median, the long yard to the left, ditch it to the right? Its a Jeep so these options are available with probably no damage should things go sideways and you need to aim for a way out.
 

The Last Cowboy

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Did not know that about the hill decent. Good info. Also, use the manual function if you have an automatic. 1 or 2 should work well to keep the speed down without using the brakes.
 

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Big fan of tire chains here.

I've been doing emergency snow clearing since way before I could legally drive. And not with push plows, but the heavy equipment that picks up when they start floundering, so that has always put me out in the worst driving conditions.

No offense to the Wranglers that I've come to love, but I've driven a 2-wheel drive Chevy 1500 pickup with chains through roads that were littered with 4x4 pickups and Jeeps that were stuck and/or abandoned.

There's a lot to be said for the right kind of driver rolling on a proper set of lower mileage tires, but there's only 2 occasions that I've seen chains fail. One was due to set of well worn set that no longer had any bite. The other was due to installation error, where they weren't snug enough and ended up twisted up in the front outer axle ujoint, at least what was left of it.
 

rallydefault

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Yea, I don't know how long and steep this icy hill is, but no amount of jeep 4x4 manliness and hill descent is really going to make things safe. Avoid if you can, but as someone else said, you kinda just have to position your tires the best you can to slide toward a safe area. If you try braking one way or another you're just gonna lock stuff up, and if you try throwing the wheel you run the risk of whipping yourself into odd angles.
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