'03 automatic, spinning front wheel, sliding backward; what?

[Nails]

The vehicle is 2003 Baja with automatic transmission. Twice in the last month, in snow on my 9% uphill driveway, I have gotten stuck going uphill. Today, on the hardpack frozen sleet from Friday's storm, I slowly made it nearly to the street, when the rt front wheel began to spin, the forward momentum stopped, the car started sliding backward, wheel still spinning. After about 3 or 4 ft of slide, the rear wheels started to spin. What in the world is going on? I thought when one spun, the others were supposed to take over.

Prior time, was in 2 - 3" of loose snow, but same spinning, with no engagement of other wheels. Didn't slide backwards, but wheels spun and we had to go back to level ground and get a runnning start.

I'd appreciate feedback about how the trans/AWD is supposed to work, and what you think mine might be doing.
Thanks.

[Kev M]

Taking a total SWAG on this, but it sounds to me like the differential is allowing all the power to one wheel, letting it spin and keep spinning.

Any trouble lights or codes?

You might stop by an Autozone and see if they will check for codes for you (unless you want to bring it to a shop).

[mbaksic]

Wow, got me on this one. I have had some spin in REALLY slick stuff. We had some slick crap out here about 2 weeks ago. When I got to work, the lot was not plowed, was up to 18+ inches of wet, heavy crap where we had to park. I tried to pull into a parking spot, and got hung up. This is on the level in the parking lot. The guys that were watchin me said the tailgate looked like a snow plow there was so much snow piled up, that it went almost to the top of the tailgate. Anyways, I had to pull back out to get further in. I was hung up and stuck. By flooring the gas, and risking blowin the trans, and violently crankin the wheel hard left and right, I was able to get out. I had both of my rear wheels spinnin, and the right front spinnin hard. I might add that the Baja was not on the pavement at all, it was up on the snow. The right front may spin, thats the same as in a FWD car. The way the front diff is, its an open diff, so it will spin if its really slick. There is not a limited slip like on the rear of the Baja. Most of the time you shouldn't have a problem though. But in real nasty stuff, you may get it to happen. Its not the Baja's fault, just the conditions that it is in. Mike