Rit&Booner

My 95 ES got stuck in the front of my house with all the ice and snow. When pressing the gas pedal, only 1 front wheel works and the other just stays still. I can't get nowhere with 1 wheel drive. Anybody knows why this happen?

steviej

iTrader: (1)

Water and moisture in the air freezes at 32°F (0°C)and below, thus producing ice and snow. Just kidding.

I assume that your ES has traction control. Was your traction control engaged at the time you were stuck or was the TRAC OFF light on? The ES as with most modern cars are front wheel drive and do not have the POSI-Traction rear differentials of years past. These limited slip differentials were able to effectively transfer power to the wheel that is not slipping.

Simply put traction control is "an option on many cars today, especially sports models. When engaged, this device "senses" when a driving tire has no traction, and attempts to compensate by slowing the wheel movement. This is good for getting traction in an area where it may normally be hard to do so (i.e. snow, gravel, rain). Traction Control was developed in Formula One racing to control wheel spin as cars travelled through turns and on slick surfaces (oil) allowing consistent application of power and maintenance of control." Most traction control works in conjuction with the ABS to limit the rotation of the spinning wheel by applying the brakes repeatedly and rapidly.

There will be some road conditions where full traction cannot be maintained even though the traction control system is in operation......moderate to heavy snow and any ice.

Keep in mind, traction control and front wheel drive is not AWD nor is it 4WD. All season tires are not snow tires. Nothing, not even the mighty SUVs, have traction on ice unless they have spikes in the tires (illegal) or are running tire chains.

The cause of your wheel spin is a combination of mother nature and the inability of your ES to attain adequate traction to provide forward momentum of your vehicle.

Welcome to the winter driving club.

Rit&Booner, please don't take this as sarcastic, it is not meant to be. I think you, like many of us, myself included, have not seen driving conditions like this in years. We tend to take front wheel drive, VSC, traction control and all season radials for granted.

On the bright side, spring is only 4 weeks away.

steviej

squarehat

Traction control wasn't available on the 1st generation ES300. It appeared as an option on the redesigned '97 models. Somebody on the SC300/400 board posted a similar question about why only one of the rear drive wheels was spinning. Here's a link:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...threadid=74010
Of course, on a RWD car, it's dealing with the rear differential. I'm no expert on this, just thought I'd post the link to their discussion.

skperformance

iTrader: (6)

the wheel spinning has no grip
the other has all so try and balance it or you will burn out the diff in the tranny spininng away
move the snow or put some old rubber carmats under
good luck
later

Rit&Booner

Thanks for the information. The wheel that spins (left front) has bald tires, the other front wheel is somewhat bald but not bad. It doesn't even try to spin, is it completely dead? Is this fixible?

My car is like halfway in the driveway and halfway in the road. And it's at an angle, making it look retarded. It's embarassing because here's a Lexus stuck at the house, other people little cars are going by and stuff.

The ECT button was probably on when I backed out the driveway, you think that's why other wheel doesn't work?

This winter sucks, you know I also got a long crack on my windshield after scraping ice off it. Right now i'm concerned about my wheel, and getting it out of the road.

njes300

dig it out instead of complaining .

Rit&Booner

Does this has anything to do with the transmission? A family member said the transmission is ******ed up. I doubt it. How can reving the tires back and forth mess it up?

So if the right front wheel is locked because it thinks it's slipping, why don't it lock the other wheel too, as this wheel is very bald.

What do you recommend putting on the spinning wheel to get my car to move? Cardboard doesn't work, I don't have wood either, rubber mats slips.

Man, I got 1 bald wheel trying to pull 3 wheels through the 3-4" snow. How do you unlock the wheel, to make it spin again?

Rit&Booner

Alright, I'll just wait till all the snow melts.

squarehat

You could always try throwing down sand or cat litter under the wheel. I've seen metal "traction ramps" in catalogs that you throw under the wheel when you get stuck.

jaymode

your wheel is not locked. you need to get some grip on the tire that is spinning so that the differential( which on some fwd is built into the tranny) will give some torque to the other wheel. You have someone else around? get them to push it or sit over the wheel that is spinning. Or you could just dig it out.

I think the reason it does not lock the other wheel is because it has an open differential as opposed to a limited slip differential which would pretty much solve your problems. 3-4" of snow is not that much, I am in like 11"

njes300

jaymode

I got over 24" in nj . Took me 3-4 hours to clear my driveway .

jaymode

Yeah I know i was stuck up in the Washington Dc area where they also got upward of 2 feet. When I got home there was 11 inch of snow that had not been plowed yet. When ever i got stuck I let my mom drive and I either sat on the car, pushed it, or tried to dig it out.

skperformance

iTrader: (6)

:eek:
ok i think i have a better grasp of what is going on
you tried to go up the driveway before you shoveled it
thus you car is now sitting on top of the snow and the wheels have dug themsleves down taking the weight of the car off them giving you no traction under it
you have to get the snow from under the car out,
not under the wheels
and dont keep trying to go back and forth you will burn the tranny as an auto diff is in the case and heats up real good dong twice its work ( doubles in speed taken up by the stopped wheel )
which can and will help to burn clutches
save some trouble and get a tow truck if nothing else helps
to pull you back to the road
40 bucks much cheaper than 36 for a tranny

later hope this helps

Rit&Booner

i got my car moving again. I had to dig up the 1"-2" snow that's left. It's rediculous how weak my car is not being able to move through that amount of snow. I used cardboard also to help and rocks. After the car started moving abit, the right front wheel spun and the left front stopped, they alternated between each time the car was stuck. Funny thing is, this kind of thing never happened before. I mean I was stuck before years ago, but both wheels kept spinning and I was able to get moving quickly.

j2tha0e

this whole thing reminds me of the end of the movie "my cousin vinnie."