Worst stuck stories and pictures

[jsmarine]

Anybody have any pictures and stories of their 4runners stuck? (mud, sand, snow, rocks etc!) Would love to hear and see your "worst stuck" story!

I know a lot of us wheel with other types of vehicles and probably have pics and stories about them, but lets just keep it to 4runners.

So swallow your pride and post them up!

 

[Adams06]

Haha, yeah I have one. One day I wasnt really thinking and decided to do a little offroading in the rain. I got about three quarters of the way up the trail and before I knew it I was stuck halfway up to my rims.

Luckily I was able to get some rocks and sticks and got enough traction to barely make it outta there, but as I backed out, I turned the wheel to do a turn about type thing and I got stuck even worse than before.

So after about 5 hours of me and my friends trying to winch and pull me out by his tacoma, we gave up and decided to come back the next day. Lucky for me theres a heavy equipment rental place right across the street from the trail, and the guy was nice enough to pull me out with a bulldozer (for a fee )

heres a bad picture of how stuck I was, unfortunately this is the only one I was able to get

 

[quicksilvr]

I haven't had my 4runner long, but I actually have a story. No picture, but it was at night anyway.


Christmas night we had a monster blizzard. I had the family out in the country at my parents house, and was needing to take my sisters boyfriend home. At this point, the wind is blowing 45mph and there was probably 13-15" of snow...which equals drifts of like 12 FEET in places.

I was driving on a two-lane paved highway in the middle of nowhere county, and was doing just fine, driving around the huge drifts, usually only having to push through about 1-2 feet of the tail end of the drifts by getting on the far edge of the road. Well, after I took him home, I was coming back through my tracks I'd made. And I was going too fast...cause I got too confident based on the trip out.

A drift pushed me off the road and dropped my right side into the road ditch...left side still on the pavement...still lined up correctly on the road. Snow covering all the windows on the right side, and snow halfway up my headlights up front. :nono:

Wind is blowing 45mph still, still snowing. I was appropriately dressed and had my cell, so I called my dad. Then assessed the situation and tried futilely to get unstuck. I actually made a decent run at getting out, but the ditch was too steep and I couldn't quite bite enough to pull me out.

Then a big electric company truck, dually with commercial utility bed came plodding along. I asked him if he had a chain or tow strap, cause I did not (my dad was bringing one). He didn't, but then I realized I had some new tie down ratchet straps in the back. I'd just bought them, and I'd sprung for the heavy duty ones that are rated pretty high. I told the electric company guy to hang on and I came back up with this dinky little tie down strap. :lol: He's like, "there's no way in hell that things gonna work". I said, "well I'd rather try and have it not work than not even try".


So I hooked this little 3/4" wide tie down strap up, and he starts pulling me out. 10 seconds later I'm up on the road and ready to roll. :reddance:

 

[FLEXincRunner]

do i even need to tell the story?????

you should see the BIG hole

 

[fourwd1]

There was this parking lot at the mall and ...

 

[wiretie44]

There was this parking lot at the mall and ...

HA HA HA HA HA HA:lol:

 

[Ron Helmuth]

sorry no pics I was a bit busy and batteries dead

Just got stuck yesterday. Really not that big a deal but made me realize you can not fight gravity and expect to win without lots of big sticks.

Went wheeling alone -well me and the dog- Took the Wellington Lake road from Jefferson County 126 north of Pine Grove to shortcut over to Bailey. This is a car road in the summer but with snow a bit more challenging. Had a great day-even getting stuck up there is better than a good day in the big city.

Mistake one- was in 4wd high and failed to appreciate the road was beginning to steepen for a hill climb. Should have stopped at bottom and put it into low or better yet gone ahead and locked my rear locker and puttered up at 5mph the whole way. Did not really look that bad... he heeee steeper than it looked apparently.

Mistake 2-allowed my right side to come too close to the inside of the hill and let my right rear slide into the depression between road and hillside. No body damage-and on a slight right hand curve so I locked my locker -put it in 4 low and powered in reverse back to the pre existing tracks on the road surface.

Mistake 3-in my zeal to get out of the right side depression-I failed to straighten it out to negotiate the curve properly-now my left side was the downhill tire. My right side tires were on track but pointing uphill and with my less than stellar treadwear (40K miles on my Nittos now) I aired down and prepped for a pull out if necessary. Figured some other guy would be coming up behind me sooner or later.

First thing I did right. Realized my mistakes and did not continue to dig in further. Left myself enough room on my left side that I was not all the way to the edge of the cliff and a 10-15 foot drop on that side.

Got out my recovery gear (hey I am stupid enough to wheel alone-I have to be prepared to save my own butt when needed) the collapsible shovel and the tow strap. First time ever I needed that little camp shovel. It worked fine but another foot of handle sure would have been great. Began to remove the snow that was high centered under my diffs and fuel tank skid plate.

Could not ask for a better day and place to be stuck. Nice and sunny -probably 40 degrees out- and what luck! a nearby brush pile already made up for me and my truck to use.

Spent about 30 minutes hauling brush and rocks to the road and under my truck-pine tree limbs with needles still attached in front and in back of all 4 wheels. 6 foot lengths of logs already cut up-shoved those behind the wheels to make a platform to back up onto.Rocks behind the rear wheels to support the bed of logs.Shovel down to the dirt as much as possible at all 4 wheels.

Worked up a pretty good sweat--went up ahead and marked the road with a criss cross of logs to signal distress to downhill travelers before they came flying down the hill and barelled into me. Should have done that first thing but honestly had not seen a soul yet so was not real worried about that. Was just getting ready to do same for the uphill travelers coming up from behind me- when sure enough along came my savior-gulp! a Jeep Cherokee -(dang it) with front and rear lockers.

Jealousy talking there, I wonder how much a front locker might have helped. Probably not much -seeing as I was not even smart enough to engage the one I had before I needed it.

By now I was ready to hop back in and give it a shot. 4 wheel low-check, rear locker on-check. I put it into 2nd gear (I am a manny tranny and 1st would have just dug in further) and tried to climb the incline and get into the road tracks. Just a low speed spin but at all 4 wheels now. So I backed onto my beds of logs to get some initial bite and sure enough pulled right up onto the pine boughs and kept my momentum going for a good 1/8th of a mile or so to reach a flat section. :reddance:

Jeep guy probably thought I was leaving all my gear behind as I was out of sight for just a minute there. Ran back to pick up my gear and he was offering to drive it up to me. 'Heck no-this will teach me a lesson' I said. But he had already unhooked my tow strap from the nearby roots and met me halfway up the trail. Nice older guy from Lakewood Colorado and I did not catch his name.

Nice to have the Jeep guy there for moral support and a ride out if that became necessary. But ultimately I did this to myself and got myself out of it with no scratches, dents or dings. I was pulling some pine brush underneath me for a couple of miles until it gave up. Covering up my tracks as I went- so to speak

I even had my Hi Lift jack out - thinking hey today might be the day I actually use it -maybe as a come along- to pull my truck sideways over onto the road with my tow strap and/or my Black Diamond climbing rope(doubled up or even tripled up likely). Even had my ARB snatch block ready-but now I see I would have needed a tree saver to have enough length to reach an attachment point.

I have heard and read of this being done but honestly had no clue how I was going to do that. But I had the instructions with the jack and the snatch block and I could have gotten it done had it really been necessary.

Sure made me forget being unemployed for 45 minutes or so. Stopped my little pity party right then and there- and reminded me why I love Colorado and the terrain offered.:driving:

Made me feel alive and realize though our trucks are awesome they are not fool proof. Proved it.

 

[twitchee2]

Dont be cheap and try and launch your jet ski from the shore at a lake that is extremely low and has saturated shore that looks solid enought.....had a f150 pull me out. he had a little trouble. this was couple years ago before i had my new tires but even then, locker probably wouldnt have helped anyway.

 

[reefer#2]

one night i decided to take a shortcut home. it had rained all week but the roads were dry.

i decided id stick to the packed dirt....

in fresno we have a topsoil which has the consistency of concrete. absolutly impossible to dig, unless you water it first, then the shovel goes through like a hot knife through buter..

well.. i had forgotten/ figured my 4runner was bulletproof

the hard dirt was no fun, so i tried to go a bit closer to the mud. bad idea.

i got stuck and i had no threads :0 on my tires

tried rocking back and forth with no success. after an hour of digging/ roccking, all i managed was to make a bigger hole. called a good buddy of mine at about 10PM he came an towed me out with a tow line for boats.

luckly there was a construction dump site near-by so we brought some planks over and jacked my back tires onto them and i drove off.



the pictures are of the day after. the giant puddle is where my back right tire was.

also recall that i have a 2wd without a rr diff lock plan on getting one soon

front tire holes:

 

[kaiser]

Stucker than stuck can be. All I suffered from this was some wet carpet. Now I have to replace the engine from this last weekend

Ran outta luck.

 

[90toytruck.]

ok so we have 10 acres out behind the shop i work for and it had been raining like hell for a couple of days . The old lady calls as im getting off work and ask me to go by the store . So i leave the yard and decide to that im going to go do a few donuts in the mud and get the Toy dirty before i go home . Anyways i head out into the feild (totally alone ) get out and start playing and dropped off into a ditch im still in 2 wd at this time ( 1st mistake ) cruisin pretty good and then the truck starts boggin bad . 2nd mistake stopped and locked it in dash light came indicating 4wd was locked in:frisky: started to take off and just started spinning went back and forth a few times nothing happening !!! long story short buried her up to the axles over the rear diff 4wd was not operational this was after head gaskets were done and the vacuum lines that control the 4wd were install backwards at the firewall getting pulled out by a s10 :cry2: lived and learned on that one not to mention the old lady was a little bit pissed off when i walked in 2 hours later covered in mud !!!! :cry2::cry2::cry2: sorry no pics of that adventure

 

[bigwalts4runner]

I got a crazy one, it was in Feb when Maryland got hit with a blizzard, I park my 4Runner infront of the driveway everyday, so it started snowing, and the dumb a$$ neighbors were trying to get their E-150 out, and this van was slipping and sliding up and down the street, I saw it and I said to myself these clowns are going to hit my truck. So I go outside and move my truck into the driveway, as soon as I did this, those clowns spin right into the place of where my truck was, so I managed to save an accident. Later in the day the snow is still falling, I decided to move my truck back to the street so the snow removal truck would not block my driveway. I did not even bother to clean the little bit of the driveway, and guess what, I got stuck in my own driveway, I turned the diff locker on and my 4Runner's four wheels were just spinning, I then put it on 4Lo and nothing happend, put it in low gear nothing, took the traction control off nothing still. I was out side in my driveway stuck for about two hours, I finally ended up messing my lawn, due to the spinning and the truck going into my lawn, which didnt help the matter. I went and got a shovel and by that time the 4Runner was standing on top of Ice, it took me another 3 hours to get the 4Runner unstuck. This was the most embarrassing moment since I bought my 4Runner.

 

[Mr. Leary]

Not the worst stuck by any stretch of the imagination, but a recent one:

A quick tug from MikeWhoTroung and I was out. Took all of two minutes.




Worst one... there have been a few bad ones over the years, but the worst one I'll always remember. I was in high school.

We get a call from a friend who is stuck on a small island near Galveston. We jump in the Pathfinder and drive over there. His tire has lost the bead and he is stuck, but not too badly. We get his spare on and jacked up the truck, got the hole filled in and covered with a sheet of plywood we found. Out he drove. We thought about it, a pretty easy one... we got lucky, or so we thought.

It had rained a bit in the last few days, so things were a little wet. The island was mostly composed of old dredge from the Houston ship channel and clay... a very sticky mud that would turn a short drive into a nightmare when things got wet.

On our way out, we took the low road (there is a high one, the one that we usually take) because the high road was still a bit wet, and we had almost slid off of the trail and rolled down the hill on the way in...

The low road was in relatively good condition for most of the trip back to the end of the paved road. The last 1/4 mile was always the worst area... uphill, deep holes, and it could get really muddy.

We got through some of the easier spots without too much trouble. When we reached the big mud hole, it looked pretty bad, but the bypass was seriously off camber and the little Montero sport that my friend was driving was kinda tippy (much more so than the Pathfinder). The Pathfinder took the bypass, my friend and I took the Montero through the mudhole. We knew it would be rough, so we got about a 30 mph start going into it. We made it most of the way, and ended up about 30 feet short of the other side.

We hopped out with the shovels and started to clear some of the mud away so we could try to pull the truck out. Then we tried to pull it out with the Pathfinder. A few tries and the Pathfinder was stuck as well. All we had at this point was the shovels and the jacks.

It was at this point that we realized that both of the trucks were sinking. This mud hole had not finished settling yet (a common occurance for these dredge islands). Luckily, the Pathfinder's front wheels were out of the hole. We weren't going anywhere, but at least it wasn't getting any worse. We could not say the same thing about the Montero. We dug, jacked, filled, tried to pull it out with a come-a long (we never could get a good anchor point set) for about 5 hours. The mud was too soupy to effectively "build" with, and filled in too fast for us to be able to effectively bury anything to use as an anchor point. We were stuck, badly. It was getting dark, and the mosquitoes were becoming well fed. We coated our exposed skin in mud to ward off the bugs. It worked alright, but was hard to keep there in 90% humidity on a hot summer night. The sweat alone would make the mud come off in globs.

Both trucks stuck and miles from town, we called our youth minister. He brought the 2wd church van out and picked us up, we would try again in the morning.


That night is started raining again. We returned to a light drizzle and walked out to where the trucks were. They were definitely still there. The Pathfinder looked just the way we left it. The Montero, however... Oh boy!

The Montero had "settled" in... the mud was now up to the windows. We knew there was no way the van or the Pathfinder were going to get the Montero out any time soon.

We guided the van back to the Pathfinder and hooked up the tow strap. The van could not gain enough traction to pull out the Pathfinder. We tried a different approach. Still the same. We tried pointing the van into the tall grass. The minister misunderstood the line we had walked... and got stuck in a hole. We now had three stuck trucks.

The call was made to AAA. Out came the wrecker. The van didn't take much. A quick tug and he drove out.

The Pathfinder didn't take long with the big winch from the truck.

The cable was not long enough to reach all the way back to the Montero... just out of reach.

The wrecker driver was glad to make it back to pavement. He almost got stuck twice.

It started raining again and didn't stop until three days later.

We returned to get the Montero a week later after everything had dried out a bit. The roof was the only thing left above the mud line. We called in a couple favors and got a Bobcat brought in to dig the truck out. It took a while. The truck was totaled.

We got anything we could recover out of the truck, and had the wrecker haul the truck to the junk yard.

... and thats all I have to say about that! :fro:

 

[driffter33]

Not the worst stuck by any stretch of the imagination, but a recent one:

A quick tug from MikeWhoTroung and I was out. Took all of two minutes.




:fro:

Looks like you might have had better luck with just a bit more weight in the back, or maybe up top.

 

[Redneck92]

That dog has the what the hell did you get us into look on his face. I haven't got my Runner stuck yet but it's bound to happen. I almost did the other night but I just had to mud bog my way out. Had my 35's completly submerged and she pulled right out. . . slowy :

 

[StreetKill831]

Only time I have ever been stuck was my first time doing some actually wheeling. My girlfriend and I decided to take our first trip to Bundy Hill ORV Park. Within 15 minutes I was stuck Was going down a small trail with some puddles here and there when we came to a "puddle" that looked a little bigger, but not enough to stop. It was about 4' long and 2' wide.

Then we found out how DEEP it was when the passenger front corner of the vehicle sunk a good 3' into the ground. With my front passenger wheel in the hole, and my driver side rear off the ground we were going nowhere.

I ended up walking around until I found some guy in his decked out heep. First thing he said was.. "you in mud? I don't really want to get this thing dirty..". I eyeballed his rig for a second(saying to myself "WTF? Are you kidding me?", looked back at him grinning and said "no there's no mud".

In the end he pulled some "normally I wouldn't charge you.. but I've been having to make a lot of repairs to the heep lately." All I had was a twenty so I handed it to him and said I guess I'll be checking water depth from now on.

Later that day I pulled two separate people out and instead of trying to make my money back just told them "you guys have fun". The way I see it, we are all out there for the same reason, we love wheelin' and havin' fun. Unless something breaks, put your wallet away.

No pics unfortunately..

 

[Redneck92]

Only time I have ever been stuck was my first time doing some actually wheeling. My girlfriends and I decided to take our first trip to Bundy Hill ORV Park. Within 15 minutes I was stuck Was going down a small trail with some puddles here and there when we came to a "puddle" that looked a little bigger, but not enough to stop. It was about 4' long and 2' wide.

Then we found out how DEEP it was when the passenger front corner of the vehicle sunk a good 3' into the ground. With my front passenger wheel in the hole, and my driver side rear off the ground we were going nowhere.

I ended up walking around until I found some guy in his decked out heep. First thing he said was.. "you in mud? I don't really want to get this thing dirty..". I eyeballed his rig for a second(saying to myself "WTF? Are you kidding me?", looked back at him grinning and said "no there's no mud".

In the end he pulled some "normally I wouldn't charge you.. but I've been having to make a lot of repairs to the heep lately." All I had was a twenty so I handed it to him and said I guess I'll be checking water depth from now on.

Later that day I pulled two separate people out and instead of trying to make my money back just told them "you guys have fun". The way I see it, we are all out there for the same reason, we love wheelin' and havin' fun. Unless something breaks, put your wallet away.

No pics unfortunately..

That guy was a douche then, pull outs are free for us. Unless your buddy is half way across town and needs gas. But it won't be 20 bucks. It's funny when one of us get stuck, give it 15 mins and everybody with a truck will have there ass down there. Wheather they help or not is a different thing but still.

 

[StreetKill831]

Yea. I have a feeling he saw that I was driving a Toyota and decided to put his **** hat on. When a jeep gets stuck at Bundy, it's just as you say. Everyone just piles in to help.

It's ok though, our yotas don't need help as often

 

[Redneck92]

Yea. I have a feeling he saw that I was driving a Toyota and decided to put his **** hat on. When a jeep gets stuck at Bundy, it's just as you say. Everyone just piles in to help.

It's ok though, our yotas don't need help as often

In my group we have Jeeps, Chevys, Dodges, Fords, and now my Yota. Mainly to keep everything different and plus who doesn't like the competetion.

 

[topdown4runner]

Not much of a story here....

Was on an organized Land Cruiser weekend in Polatka Fl. in Nov. '08.
Had a great time on the obstacles ( sp ).
This mud pit was fun. I had no locker at the time. Almost made it all the way through. It only took a little tug to get going again.
Those mud stains are still on the soft top to this day. Have not been mudding since. I stick to rock crawling now. Much more fun and no mud in every orafice to deal with.