28 Easy Steps to Digging Out Your Car

How to dig your car out of a snow grave.

Feel free to print these directions out and put them in your glove box.

...no seriously....

1. Open car door from passenger side. Why the passenger side? Because snow will fall into your car, and it is up to you whether you want it to fall on the driver’s side seat, where you will be sitting in 10 minutes, or on the passenger seat. I opt for the passenger seat, but should you enjoy a wet bum in the morning, I would open the driver’s side door first.
2. Turn off all windshield wipers. Why? Because snow is heavy, and most windshield wipers can’t sweep 15 inches of snow off the front of your car effortlessly. Unless you want to risk having the screws in your wipers strip, causing them to not work, I suggest making sure they are off before doing anything.
3. Start car…this can often go in tandem with step 1.75: pray that car will start.
4. put both front and rear defrosters on high.
5. enjoy that freezing air that just pelted your face because your car hasn’t had a chance to warm up.
6. find gloves and snowbrush/scraper
7. wear one glove upside down because you accidently have two left handed gloves in your car.
8. Start sweeping off passenger side window, going from top to bottom, and moving around toward the back of the car. This will give your car a chance to thaw the windshield before you get to it. I also find that my rear defroster works much faster.
9. Advance to windshield. Do not be scared. You are better than the windshield.
10. Start brushing at the end of the glass, running vertical strokes from the top to the bottom of your winshield.
11. Continue Step 10 until you have reached the middle of the windshield and can no longer reach.
12. Walk over to other side of car.
13. Repeat Steps 10-12.
14. By now, your defroster should be helping, if only a little. If you have ice stuck to your windshield, continue to step 15. If you have a clean windshielf, free of ice, skip to step 17.
15. take your scraper and identify the area where the defroster has done the most work for you. This is usually in the lower middle portion of your windshield. Do not start in the top corners, as those are the most frozen.
16. Gently scrape, or in some cases aggressively hack, until you can see the glass. Create a small clean section, and work around its perimeter to increase the size of the cleared section. Continue until your windshield is cleared.
17. Move onto the wipers. If you didn’t do an adequate job removing snow the first time, take time to clear the snow out from under/around the wipers by flipping your wiper up and ridding of all snow/ice. Don’t be afraid to get aggressive close to the wipers.
18. Clean off the actual wiper blade by running your scraper along the part that runs on the glass. What is the importance of this, you ask? Well, once you get into the car, you are going to run your wiper blade, and if you don’t clean it completely, you will find that you have an ineffective wiper that cleans, maybe a streak or two of your windshield. To avoid having to get back out of your car, do this quick step while you are already out there.
19. Walk to other side of car.
20. Repeat steps 17-19 on your other wiper.
21. Get in car and run your wipers. See that your windshield is clear enough for your liking. If it is, move on to step 22, if its not, get out and redo steps 17-20. No, running wiper fluid will not magically fix the fact that your wipers aren’t doing anything for you.
22. You are now ready to get your car out.
23. Put car in drive. Drive you ask? Yes, drive. Putting your car in drive, and inching forward a few inches will give you more leverage and space to put your car in reverse and build power and speed to get you out of the snow grave you are in. Now stop asking questions, I know what I am doing. So, inch forward a few inches.
24. Now, put it in reverse, and gas it relatively powerfully. The little extra space you gained from inching forward should provide you enough space to gain some power and get your car right out. Should you still be stuck continue to step 25.
25. Put car back into drive and repeat steps 23 through 24. Do not continue to floor it in reverse. This will be your gut reaction but it is important to fight it. If you continuously floor it backwards without gaining any ground, your wheels will dig you into a tractionless hole and you will get stuck. No traction= no way for your car to move= major problem.
26. Continue to do steps 23 through 24 until your car has removed itself from the spot. I affectionetly call this “rocking.” It typically takes me one to two rocks to get my car out of its spot. Do not give up! Provided that you have rocked correctly, you will be able to build up enough speed to get yourself out of the spot!
27. Once out of the spot, it is completely appropriate and normal to scream gleefully/congratulate yourself/do a happy dance.
28. Glare at the perfectly clean suv that just drove by. They have a garage, you don’t.