Nissan Rogue Forum

On my way to my daughter's friend's house to pick her up yesterady the passenger side front tire hit a soft spot in the road (long dirt road and we got about a foot of snow Friday night) and I got sucked right off the road into the snow on the side. Car stayed straight and after the initial reaction of trying to stop I realized I might be able to recover it if I could steer my way out and plow through before I lost all my moemtum. Alas it was not to be. Got the front end to start turning and the driver's side front tire was actually inches from the edge of the road when I came to a stop.

Got out, dug out in front of the front tires and tried to get myself out, but the CVT and the computer didn't want to let me do anything. Een disabling the VDS and locking the AWD wouldn't do anything other than rev the motor to about 2000rpm...it wouldn't let me spin the wheels, not even one of em.

Fortunately this happened in a spot where the cell phone worked and I was able to call for help, the other dad showed up and we were able to pull it out with the rear tow hook (front hook placement is definitely a bad idea, the mount is behind the stupid from license plate so if you get stuck you better make sure you can take the plate off in order to attach the recovery hook.

I can't help but think that if I could have gotten the tires moving I could have gotten out. I can see the VDS keeping me from spinning the tires but shouldn't I have been able to do it wth the VDS switched off? I feel like I missed something here, but don't know what it was.

I live in a snowy area, this will eventually happen again, its best to know how to get out of it.

I'm kind of wondering if my VDS isn't working...on a snowy road with the VDS engaged I can kick the rear end out when pulling away from a stop sign and I was able to hold the rear end out with the throttle for a pretty good distance...isn't it supposed to keep me from doing anythng like that? The Audi we traded in on the Rogue would engage individual brakes and cut engine power when it detected sliding, it was impossible to get that car sideways with the throttle and steering angle when the system was on.

When the rear end is hanging out on the Rogue, the slip indicator lights up in the instrument cluster, but the system doesn't seem to do anything intrusive to try to straighten the car out...I don't hear the brakes puling or the engine cutting power.

Thoughts?

1. thats odd. vdc is supposed to cut engine power instantly. it does it in every car i have ever driven. its supposed to stop all fish-tailing/drifting instantly.

2. the slip indicator lights up and its supposed to cut engine power. if i can find some ice, i will try with all the systems on as normal and see if i can drift on ice for you- and i will report back. bear with me, its kinda dry in nj at the moment.

as for the being stuck... its tough to tell. you could have dug yourself into a pit in each tire and now allowing yourself to get out. awd/4wd is in many ways useless in deep crazy snow- unless you have really meaty tires that act like shovels scooping away whatever your stuck in.

what tires do you have? can you post pictures of the tread?

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They're Continentals that came on the car, we bought it CPO with 34,000 on it a couple months ago. I do not know the model, but they are OEM size and still have good tread. They are all seasons though, not dedicated snows, which will be on the shopping list for next winter. For all I know, they might be the original tires.

Definitely didn't dig in with any tires. Wouldn't even spin one revlolution out of any one tire. With the car in D and the VDS off and awd locked I floored the accelerator and the car moved about an inch and the tach went to about 2k rpm and held there. I didn't let it sit long, fearing that I was probably going to burn out the rubber bands in the transmission but I helpd the gas long enough to know that the tires weren't spinning and I wasn't going anywhere. I shut the car off and restarted and tried again, got a bit of wheel spin so maybe it was in some soft of shutdown mode from sliding like it did? As soon as the wheels started spinning the car was moving forward so the snow wasn't too deep for it, but the computer shut me down again after moving maybe a foot at the most. Right about that time, my friend showed up in his truck and we pulled it out backwards.

It was weird, thats for sure. It bothers me that the VDS allows that kind of slip angle though...makes me wonder if somethng is busted.

lol we dont drive a scooter with rubber band belts in our cvt. we have steel belts.




and i must say you had some weird issues. i hope they are all not like this. when it snows, before i even put the car in D i shut off all the vdc's, etc in every car i owned as i HATE those systems. so intrusive its not even funny. i prefer wheel spin, and prefer to drift. i used to drift a nissan 240sx in competitions so i understand how to control the vehicle, and would rather drift into a corner, then have the system paralyze the drive wheels and me slide uncontrollably.

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When I started my new job in Sept I bought the Rogue SL AWD. Frankly I never envisioned it to be off road, just maybe a bit better in snow. I haven't run into any case where the VDC or AWD has come into play. That may end tomorrow since we are expecting 2" snow, BFD.

If I find the VDC a PIA I'll shut the MF thing off. I'm inclined to agree that I don't want a car taking control for me. But the jury's still out until I see what it does.

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When an eel bites your thigh like a big pizza pie, that's a moray.

The Audi almost never had the traction control/slip program/VDS equivalent kick in, but when it did you knew it because it would pulse one or more brakes in order to help straighten the line, cut engine power or both...the car had very high traction limits so unless I was being an idiot on glare ice it almost never kicked in...but it was defeatable too...but I never chose to do it unless I was having a problem where wheel slip was desirable (like trying to get out of some snow). I don't think the Rogue's system will be much of an intrusion either, if the timing of the slip icon on my dash accurately portrays when the system was actively trying to do something.

With 2" of snow you should have no problem exploring the system's limitations and seeing when it kicks in and under what kind of inputs from you.

I'd be very interested to know if you can hang the rear end out like I can with the system on.

I dunno with my weight and that of The Rodentwoman there's enough rear end hanging out at my house. Big Father Siamese cat is overweight too. Tried to convince the veteran aryan that he's a small raccoon.

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When an eel bites your thigh like a big pizza pie, that's a moray.

More experimentation last night. Roads still icy and slick and I had to run out last night so I did a little more messing around.

Car was as it starts, so AWD was not locked, VDC was set to on, everything seemed normal.

Nailed the throttle while going around a 90 degree left hander, rear tires kicked right out but at nowhere near the kind of slip angle I experienced the prior day...maybe a half turn of opposite lock on the steering wheel to keep it controlled. The slip indicator was on solid and the car seemed to be fighting me to come out of the powerslide, but it didn't feel like any of the brakes were being applied...didn't hear or feel that ABS pulsing racket you get. Engine kept revving, but not wildly up to the redline...but the CVT does a lot to keep you from getting anywhere about 3500 rpms at almost any throttle input so I couldn't honestly say that the VDC was supressing engine power any.

It was very predicatable and controlable and just about the instant I let off the thing pulled straight and true, no drama, no fuss, jst rolled up the street.

Weird. Maybe I tripped the VDC off the other day...I'm pretty darn sure there were no yellow lights on the dash at the time it fishtailed, but maybe somehow it was switched off and I was unaware. Or the cold did something, which also seems unlikely.

hahahahahha i dont know why, but i just picture this really agitated driver just stomping at the gas pedal lolololol thats funny.
glad to hear your car is back to normal.

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Yeah, maybe the car just needed a good reboot...seems a more appropriate word that "restart" doesn't it?

The Rogue is a very frustrating car to drive angry...you just can't do it. Between the AWD, the VDC and the CVT there's just too many acronyms being forced on you to drive it like you stole it.