What's in your Winter Car "Kit"?

irish44j wrote:

mndsm wrote: Cell phone. Cell phone charger. Sometimes gloves. 10mm ratchet combo. Ice scraper. Sometimes a blanket. Snacks. Whatever beverage I leave the house or store with (sometimes beer). I should put a knife in this car. I'm pretty lazy though, I don't venture off the beaten path and I have excellent tow coverage and many cars. Oh and jumper cables. Every car I own gets a set, regardless of seasonal use.

I don't carry this around all the time in the winter - only when I'm going out of the 'burbs into more rural/mountain areas. Up in the W.Va. mountains, there's a lot of places with no cell coverage where my AAA won't do much good (plus, if my WRX on snow tires gets stuck, fat chance a tow truck driver's gonna be able to get to me anyhow).

Yeah, I came back that direction when I bought the corolla off Sky_Render- There wasn't E36 M3 out there except a buncha rednecks and dead deer. And that was summer. Oh, maybe you can answer me something. Why the hell are there pickups parked at the bottom of nearly every grade coming over the Appalachians?

I have a tow rope, jumper cables, zip ties, and a small shovel.

If you get any of your supplies as a gift open the box and check on it. For Christmas when The Wide and I were dating her parents got me what I thought was a collapsible snow shovel. I tossed it in the trunk and didn't give it another thought. One night I got stuck. I took out the box and inside was not a shovel. They reused the box to wrap a flannel shirt.

TGMF wrote: Where do you guys live that you'd need anything more than a cell phone? Do you all really live outside of suburbia that far?

For me it's not for "where I live" (in the suburbs of DC), but there isn't always cell signal up in the boondocks in W.Va. mountains (nor are there many people there). And I figure if my WRX on snow tires gets stuck, I probably won't be getting many other people coming by.

Besides, what's cell signal going to do if you're stuck in one of those 12-hour gridlocks that happen in a big storm, or if you're in a place that a towtruck can't get to anyhow? I prefer to be able to take care of myself if the worst happens. My trunk is always empty. Having a box of winter stuff in there costs me nothing to lug around all winter.

mndsm wrote:

irish44j wrote:

mndsm wrote: Cell phone. Cell phone charger. Sometimes gloves. 10mm ratchet combo. Ice scraper. Sometimes a blanket. Snacks. Whatever beverage I leave the house or store with (sometimes beer). I should put a knife in this car. I'm pretty lazy though, I don't venture off the beaten path and I have excellent tow coverage and many cars. Oh and jumper cables. Every car I own gets a set, regardless of seasonal use.

I don't carry this around all the time in the winter - only when I'm going out of the 'burbs into more rural/mountain areas. Up in the W.Va. mountains, there's a lot of places with no cell coverage where my AAA won't do much good (plus, if my WRX on snow tires gets stuck, fat chance a tow truck driver's gonna be able to get to me anyhow).

Yeah, I came back that direction when I bought the corolla off Sky_Render- There wasn't E36 M3 out there except a buncha rednecks and dead deer. And that was summer. Oh, maybe you can answer me something. Why the hell are there pickups parked at the bottom of nearly every grade coming over the Appalachians?

Hunters. Parked at the most convenient places to hike into the woods.

Keith Tanner wrote:

mazdeuce wrote: Does anyone have any thoughts on the weird hook thingies that tow truck drivers use to grab onto frame holes to yank cars out of ditches? I know where to hook onto all of my cars, but I'm always just a little nervous when improvising other peoples cars. Also, light coveralls, water resistant if possible. I HATE laying in road side goo.

Let them hook up to their own vehicles, that's the easy button. Just make sure the strap won't go through your rear window if they screw up. Chains are good for this, they don't whip, they just drop.

Which is all well and good in theory, but the last person I pulled out was a lady in her early 60's with her two grand daughters with her. Luckily she had an SUV with tow hooks on the front, but it did make me think. She did not know what the tow hooks on her truck were. I can't imagine asking her to crawl under and pick something solid.

My winter car kit is an outfit that would survive the conditions/temperatures of the day without assistance for a near indefinite period of time, an i phone and a led flashlight. This has saved my life.

I was in my Fj40 land cruiser with my wife on the coldest day I can remember (it was -33 here last night with wind chill, this was worse) when it e36m3 out and left us in a position where there was no help was available for 4 1/2 hrs. No heat, no place to go for help. We had our north face ski gear with us from skiing the day prior, it saved our lives.