I was messing around in Lake Tahoe last weekend and drove on a road that had roughly 10"+of snow, not plowed of course. I drove about 100ft and realized traction was getting bad, so I backed up, but then got stuck. Only the front wheels spin. My truck is a 2003 D2 with a 2" lift with stock wheels using 265-75-16 Duratracs. I tried rocking the truck, used Lo gear, nothing. Stuck some branches under the tires, no help either. A family in a Tahoe truck said "that sucks, I was stuck earlier also". He ended up pulling me out after a struggle but I got out. I then pulled him out after he stuck pulling his friends Hyundai out. What an embarassing situation. If I had a locking transfer case, would I been able to get out? I have been wheeling a few times in the past doing moderate and occasionaly hard trails and have not had an incident where a locking transfer case was needed.

 

Was your traction control working?

Yes a cdl probably would have helped.

 

The CDL is always useful in slippery conditions, be it mud or snow.

 

Any dash lights on, if the 3 amigos are on then traction control will not work.

 

I too haven't been impressed on how the traction control works in snow. Usually both front tires spin and the back doesn't. I'll be adding the CDL this summer when I have more time to work on the Disco.

 

To the OP, yes CDL will make a difference. As you experienced, the TC will "essentially" shift power to the wheels with the least amount of resistance.

TC is great....until you lose momentum.

 

Yes, but the tc is applying the brakes to make the tires with traction have the least resistance since the spinning wheels are now getting some brake action, that brake action is supposed to exceed the resistance of the tire with traction.

 

Say that again?

I edited my post above a little, as the wording wasn't really accurate to what I was trying to imply.

 

Hey it made sense to me at the time. What I'm trying to say is the open diff sends power to whatever wheel is the easiest to spin. The traction control puts the brakes on that easy to spin wheel. Therefore making it harder to spin, now power is going to go to the wheel that has traction. The brakes are making the wheel with traction have less resistance so the open diff sends power to it instead of the previously easy to spin wheel.

 

To be fair...it would be better to have CDL but Land Rover TC works alot better than people think it does.