Offroading 101

Took my new company car (a Jetta GLI at that, wowzers!) to the beach to get a nice shot of it at sunset, against a lifeguard tower. Sounds good so far right? Well, maybe all of 3 meters onto the sand my brand new Jetta gets stuck. Really stuck. I tried with traction control on, off, steering lock to lock, rocking back and forth. It wasn't budging.

By the time I gave up the front of the Jetta was resting comfortably on the belly pan and I could spin both front wheels by hand. It wasn't going anywhere at this point. Luckily a friend had a CAA card and help was on the way. I got this picture while waiting for the tow truck. Just imagine it 20 minutes earlier under a lifeguard tower in a proper 'pose'.

So I got a little adventure, a sorta funny story, a picture to prove it and a lesson learned - don't take a sporty car with semi-performance tires onto a sandy beach. Regular all seasons maybe, semi-performance no. And bring a friend with a 4x4 just in case.

Don't forget to biggie size it so you can really see how dug in the front was.