About 10 years ago, a friend of mine needed to slide a shed away from a lake’s increasing waterline. I tried to use my 4×4 Jeep Wrangler, but it couldn’t do the job. An hour later another friend showed up with a Ford Excursion and pulled it without a problem. All of my friends are engineers and said. “Well, it’s because we needed a longer wheelbase”. Why does that matter? Isn’t it about mass?
In: 4
Wrangler is quite short. When you pull something, the reaction to your pull will make the front of the vehicle to get lighter. And the weight shifts to the rear. So your 4X4 is now 2 wheels in the front too light and the 2 wheel in the back pressed to sink in the mud. If it was on tarmac, it wouldn’t be such a problem as long as you lock all differentials.
A longer vehicle will suffer less the nose up reaction, thus spreading the pull force more evenly between wheels. This gives you more traction.
In this case basic theory was misleading, the problem is not about torque or force or weight, but vehicle stability.
Maybe I’m wrong, this is the reason that seems more logical to me but I want at the lake with you so I don’t know all the factors.
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