You own an 800 kg 4WD truck and you decide to go help a friend who got stuck on a steep snowy mountain road in his 400 kg Porche. The grade of the road is 30%, meaning it makes an angle of 17 degrees with the horizontal. You position your truck just above his car and attach a tow rope. You figure you'll be able to pull him out because you have better tires. However, as you try to tow the car, both vehicles start to slide down the slope, the car below the truck. The coefficient of kinetic friction between your tires and the road is Δk=0.35 while for his car it is Δk =0.25.
A) What is the acceleration of each vehicle?
B) What is the tension in the tow rope?
C) Describe what would happen quantitatively (i.e., give accelerations) if your truck had been positioned below the car instead of above the car and they both started to slide.