Taking “Mall Crawler” To The Extreme – Lifted Jeep Stuck In Mall Parking Lot

It’s really hard not to just sit and laugh at this, especially when you consider how cliche it has become to cruise the mall parking lot in lifted Jeep Wranglers instead of actually taking them offroad.

This guy, or gal, managed to find the one small pile of snow in the entire mall parking lot, and thought it would be fun to climb it, showing off his Wrangler’s jacked up suspension. However, what he didn’t take into consideration was the fact that he had to get down, and with the height of the snow pile being just a few inches taller than the ground clearance of his Jeep, this left him quite literally dangling with no chance of escape.

I know a lot of you, especially those who don’t have a lot of experience with off-roading, are probably thinking “There are at least 2 wheels on the ground, why can’t he just drive off the snow using those wheels to pull the Jeep forward?” and that is where we learn a valuable lesson about drivetrains.

To put this as simply as I can, since I don’t personally understand the technical details myself, drivetrains are designed to send power to the path of least resistance. If you have a four wheel drive vehicle like this Wrangler, the differentials are designed to send power to the wheels that spin most freely, to avoid putting stress on wheels, axles and joints that may be in a bind. In most cases, all four wheels are on the ground, so this is a good thing because it keeps at least one wheel pushing the vehicle forward, at least in theory, without breaking parts.

However, when you have a wheel that’s not touching the ground at all, that becomes the path of least resistance and none of the power gets sent to the wheels that actually have traction, so that leaves this Jeep propped precariously atop this pile of snow, either until it melts or until somebody comes along to pull him off.