Could 1 car push another car uphill bumper to bumper?

The message from Robert Sulgrave contains these words:

One, if it's me. A dozen if it's the wife.

Hire a winch. Electric if you've got a long distance to go and a suitable supply, manual if it is only a few car lengths, or you're hard as nails. You may have to do it in several goes, as the tow wire will be of limited length.

The winch will be much safer than pushing with a car.

Christian.

Go to a local tyre fitters and scrounge a couple of old ones off the pile. PLace inbetween the two vehicles to provide a cushoin and minimise damage.

ALSO have the car that is pushing the other do it in reverse, i.e back up to the duff car and push it up using reverse gear.

Are you lot thick?

Simple solution: Couple of old tyres to use as a cushino between the two vehicles.

Oh dear...

Hmmm, let's see.

Your solution requires two old tyres. To get them and dispose of them afterwards, I'd guess at about an hour and a half total - and that's

My solution won't touch the bumpers, and will take about 5 seconds. If it turns out you need to take the plugs out, that'll go up to about 20 minutes.

I'm all confused. Who was it you think is thick again?

Cheers,

Colin.

I'm not *that* old. I just happen to think the starting handle is a brilliant invention that should never have been done away with. How many times have you had a fairly flat battery, and struggeld to spin the engine over? Now think, with a handle you can have all the available battery power for the coil, as well as a handy basic compression tester, dead car mover, fuel pump primer... Only downside is when you've got a diesel Landy, tried using the handle on one of those many years ago, still aching now!

I'm also a fan of good old black and white movies ;)

Yep. Brilliant film, IMO :)

That'd be the one. And the heroic Brit is actually an alcoholic who just wants a cold beer... OK, not quite, but still, it's in there somewhere :)

Aha! You mean the pushing car is actually stuck behind the dead one?

You never mentioned that aspect...

In which case it's *still* better to make a friend and get them to tow it uphill with a rope.

A strong rope.

I'm not the OP and we're not getting much info from him about what the situation is. I was going by this post :-

I get the impression that the duff car might possibly be blocking a working one on a drive or something.

Cheers,

Colin.

Seems a good idea. Why would it be better pushing it in reverse? Is there more "push" in reverse at low speeds than in 1st? They are both front wheel drive manual gearbox.

How could a stand alone winch work? Would need to be fixed to something heavy?

The bumpers are not painted so no worries there. And its a late 80s car so maybe not as fragile as a modern car.

Shouldn't be a problem, though it's probably easier to tow it, surely you have at least one friend ? :-)

Reverse is almost always the lowest ratio in the box. So there's a bit more push, and also more revs per mph so perhaps slightly better for very low speed "contact manouvres" maybe?

There's more 'push' (torque) due to the lower gear ratio in reverse. Also more fine control.

And in reverse in a FWD car the power will tend to make the driving wheels dig in rather than lift off, same as FWD wheelspins a lot more than RWD going forwards...

Either heavy, or a stake in the ground, or suitable tree etc. How strong depends on the slope and the weight of the car. Have someone standing by with chocks, though, in case the winch starts going down the hill.

Christian.

And when steering, there will be less sideways force on the contact area.

Christian.

Robert Sulgrave (R Sulgrave) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

So move the working car out the way, roll the broken one down, then tow the broken one from "above".

You *will* f*ck plastic bumpers up, big time, by pushing.