Winch-Out and Vehicle Recovery

Do not keep spinning the wheels

The most expensive part of most recovery calls is what happened in the twenty minutes before the call. Spinning tires digs the vehicle deeper, packs mud into the wheel wells and can cook a transmission. Once you know you are stuck, stop, put it in park, and call.

What we need to know

Recovery scoping is mostly geometry. Where the vehicle is relative to the road, what is around it, and how far it has to travel to get back on solid ground. A photo from your phone often saves ten minutes on the call.

• How far off the road the vehicle is
• Mud, gravel, water, snow or a ditch
• Whether the vehicle is level, leaning or on its side
• Whether the wheels still turn
• What is nearby: fences, trees, power poles, water

Valley conditions that put people in ditches

Winter rain turns the shoulder gravel on farm roads into something with no grip at all. Fog on the flats near Donald and Broadacres hides where the shoulder ends. Harvest season puts mud on the pavement at every field entrance. None of these are driver error stories, they are just what the roads out here do in the wet months.

Where we provide winch-outs and recovery

We are based at 21158 OR-99E in Aurora, OR, and we cover twenty five towns across the Willamette Valley and the south Portland metro, plus part of Clark County in Washington. The closest and busiest are Aurora, Canby, Woodburn, Wilsonville, Hubbard, Newberg. If your town is not on the service area list, call anyway and we will tell you honestly whether we can get to you.