Hi,

This happened to me about 3-4 month ago:

My street is very quite dead-end, about 1/4 mile between houses, it's unusual to see somebody. I was driving home late night and so some lights down the street. So, I decided to check it out. I have found a Honda CRV, about 30 feet from the road, sitting deep in the snow and 2 Hindus guys nearby. They were "testing" a new CRV (brand new real 4wd truck!!! ) offroad. (By the way, the "offroad" was actually my property). They have spent about hour already trying to dig the car out. Under each wheel was a hole so deep that the wheels were barely touching the ground. I guess they spent first 5-10 minutes just pushing the pedal down to the floor.

By the way, I learned from them a new offroad technique : because the snow was so slippery, they laid newspapers under the wheels to "improve traction"! (And I'm not kidding. I swear it's true) You have to try it next time when you go 4wheeling! I assure you, you will amaze everybody around!

So, ... when I finally stop laughing ... They ask me what ELSE they can do to get the car back on road. I gave them bunch of options
- call 911 (to explain that are hell they were doing on somebody elses land)
- wait until the snow melts down (it was December)
- walk to a nearest hardware store (5-6 miles) to buy a couple shovels
- etc

The guys were so tired that could not smile. Then, I told : "Let me try something", and
- turn on the roof mounted lights and fog lights (bingo, finally the saw how deep they were in sh#t)
- put the X on 4Lo
- open the truck - they saw a nice set of tow rope, folding shovel, extra canister of gas, tool box, boots and gloves (seeing their faces - priceless)
- hooked the tow rope to the CRV
- pull them out

The X has pulled CRV from the snow as easy as I pull a can of beer from my fridge. 2 minutes later it was ended. I recommended them to buy a 4x4 for offroad use.
- It is 4x4!
- Aha. Sure... - I smiled

(- Thank you - You are welcome - Good bye - Good bye) and they are gone.

That's it.

Hope I had a couple smiles when you read my story.

The CRV does have an advantage, its so light and flimsy its easy to recover! Did you make sure the headed down to the Nissan dealer?

Yeah and those Hindu guys are really light, being vegetarians and all.

Xterra 1
CRV 0

Before I knew any better, I purchased a Honda CRV "4WD" thinking it was good enough to use as a fishing rig. Um, yeah, I realize now what a dumbass I was for making that purchase.
Long story short, I was outside of Keno, Oregon (find that on a map) on an old logging road in six inches of frozen snow/ice. After bottoming out the POS about eight times, my friend Steve says to me, "Uh, I don't think we should go any farther." The thing had zero manueverability, so I had to back the thing in reverse for two miles through that stuff. My friend Steve looked like he was picturing us on the six o'clock news. If it wasn't a MT and I wasn't a pretty decent driver, that thing would still be there.
Two weeks later I traded the CRV in. I feel sorry for the poor sap who buys that thing, I have no idea how much damage we did to the transfer case when bottoming out.

What transfer case?

Tranny maybe? No T-case on those things, traany and "transfer case" all in one. Yes they are crappy!

Hmm, something similar happend to me just 2 months ago, except the situations was reversed - I was the guy stuck.

Didn't trespass nobody's land though; my crapp all seasons just couldn't handle the snow. A farmer nearby pulled me out with his F250.

Thanks for confirming my 4x4 purchase! My best friend has a CRV and I test drove one before I found the Xterra. It drove nicely, but didn't impress me the way the Xterra did. Haven't regretted our purchase.

Next we'll be comparing Xterras to shopping carts.

Waste of time.

Um, I think that's what we just did!

Honestly, its a comparison I would have never dreamed of. Maybe to FJ40, Rubicon, H3.....

But, lets give them a little credit. People just trying to get into wheeling may have no idea what a real 4x4 needs.