Prius in the Snow?

I have my winter meat on (Mitchelin) and it makes a huge difference.

The weight is nice in keeping up your momentum when you need it - especially when your belly is dragging on the snow.

In EV mode, I have found more control before tire spin on starts and getting out of the soft stuff.

All vehicles have 4 brakes. Your tires (traction control) make the difference here.

 

hopeless here in ice too
loss of all power when trying to move off on ice
Here's what I think happens
It detects one of the front wheels racing and brakes it. The other wheel then has all power, it spins so it brakes it
result = nothing
I think it's called No Traction control
A normal car you just let the wheels spin until they pull you out of it

 

No, that isn't how the Prius TC works. It just reduces the power, in my case it appears to cut all the power

The TC on my FJ *does* use the brakes. A common scenario here in winter, the curbside is icy, the center portion is bare. Light turns green, I step on the gas.

The FJ is rear wheel drive. The right rear wheel starts to spin a bit, the brake is applied to that wheel, power is transfered to the left rear wheel, and away I go with no drama whatsoever. I *never* operate my FJ in 4wd, on public roads, once you shift an automatic transmission FJ into 4wd, you dump the VSC

With the studded winter tires on my Prius, I have no trouble whatsoever on glare ice. Actually, my Prius has *better* glare ice performance than my FJ with studless winter tires

 

Tom

There are a lot of old wives tales about studded tires causing road damage - the reason Ontario banned studded tires. FYI Ontario now allows studded tires again, at least north of Parry Sound

Frequently Asked Questions: Vehicles

If you get factory studded Nokian winter tires, they have the "Scandinavian" stud system. This actually provides much better winter ice traction, while dramaticaly reducing and potential road wear. The Swedish Road Research Institute, VTI, has extensive documentation on this fact

Are winter tires - overall - better than "all season" tires, in winter conditions? Of course they are. With my Prius, after dinking around with a couple of brands of studless winter tires, I went back to a fairly modern design studded tire. Day and night difference on ice

I only wish I could swap my FJ studless winter tires right now for Nokians. There are apparnently only two Nokian tires in all of Canada that will fit my FJ. The new Quebec winter tire law sucked up all the winter tires

There is that Tire Rack test of studded and studless winter tires, which I found a bit deceiving. They studded tire they tested looked like a design from the 1970's. Put a studless tire up against a factory studded Nokian, see how the results compare then

jay

 

My first summer with my Prius, a few of us from the office rented a cabin at a fishing camp in NW Ontario. Our convoy consisted of a VW Golf tdi, a Lexus RX, and my Prius.

There is a gravel road to the fishing camp. One steep hill, and my Prius just came to a stop halfway up. Impossible to get a run, as there was a sharp corner at the bottom of the hill. The guy in the Golf stickshift had to stop behind me, then with minor wheelspin got going again, drove around me

Had to use the emergency eyebolt, a tow strap, and the RX to pull me up the hill. I suppose dedicated offroad tires would have helped in that situation, but the RX and the Golf both had all season tires. No trouble for the awd Lexus, and minor wheelspin for the Golf

 

ok - sorry I made a bad guess
So as soon as it detects one wheel spinning it cuts power to both

Did someone find an emergency way of switching it out

 

Since the Prius has an "open" differential - correct

There is a procedure to put the Prius into "inspection" mode, which disables the TC. This is HIGHLY dangerous as you could cause catastrophic damage to the PSD.

I will not get into how to enter Inspect mode. A search of this site will find the correct procedure

 

This is both my first winter with a Prius and the first time that I ever bought snow tires (despite living in a snow tire and chain reccommended area). It's also been a good year for the skiers! We've had a fair bit of snow and a covering of snow and ice for the last 2 weeks.

For snow tires I bought the highly reccommended Nokian WRG2, and I've had no problems with them. On the first snow before the gritters had come out it was like driving on a dry road. In icy conditions they gave a good grip and despite a few slips on some thick black ice it handled extremely well (better then the few 4X4's in front of me)

Trying to climb the mountain passes it struggled a little on the ice but as has already been said in previous posts this is due to the traction/rev limit factor, still didn't have many problems and got up the hill fine, despite the fact I don't bother with chains.

I think it all depends on your confidence driving in bad conditions and a good tyre choice. (Thanks to everyone who suggested the Nokians)

 

I have read many threads regarding the Prius in snow. I purchased Bridgestone Blizzak snow tires with dedicated rims for winter driving. In 6-8 inches of snow I have not had any problems that would be vehicle specific. I did try the stop on a steep hill and try going again. What happenned was the traction control alternated from right to left and back again trying to find traction. Never did both wheels stop at the same time. The Prius is as good as any front wheel drive can be with proper tires. The rule in winter driving is keep moving and look ahead for possible issues, ice, hills, the other guy and finally use real snow tires.

 

Reid is absolutely right.
The Prius is just as good or better than every other normal car.
I live in Norway and have been testing this the entire last week.
Just buy good winter tyres and you are good to go.
I use stud free Viking Continental conticontact3, and would higly recommend these for both snow and ice.
And remember, in winter driving, always use less power than you think.
Heavy on the pedal is not the way.

 

Sorry, that isn't how the Prius TC works, it cannot apply the brake to the spinning wheel. It just cuts power, then applies it again. My FJ Cruiser will actually apply the brake to the spinning wheel - in 4lo it can do this to all four wheels

An older Prius, like mine, has such a delay between power cycles, that for all purposes there is no power applied and the car remains motionless. Particularly frustrating was at an intersection when the right front wheel was sitting on ice, and the left front wheel was sitting on pavement. With the Integrity tires, the car would remain motionless once the light turned green

I test drove a new 2008 back in April, and it's TC behavior was *much* better. It cycles a lot faster, so would be much easier to live with. As far as my Prius, I finally solved my ice traction problems by running aggressive studded tires

As a further complication, only a handful of early 04-05 Prius exhibit this over-aggressive TC behavior. Just as only a relative handful experienced the Stall, like mine did

 

Here's what I observed this week when I was trying to get through 14 inches of new snow to leave a ski area parking space. I've got a 2009 with the stock tires. I was using the old-fashioned method of rocking back and forth, making it a little farther on each "forth". At some point I thought I had it made to get out into the packed lane and I pushed on, but I didn't quite make it. I was in the stability-control-limbo of no movement in either direction. By chance I opened the door and SAW THAT THE LEFT FRONT WHEEL WAS SLOWLY ROTATING, EVEN WHEN THE CAR WAS IN "N". No wonder I couldn't get traction with a self-generated lubricated roadbed under that tire! I put it in Park to stop the spinning and was thinking about which items of clothing to sacrifice under the front tires when some folks walked by and gave me the push I needed to get back into non-liquified snow. Once I got back on "normal" packed snow the traction was fine (for snow). Next time I will be sure I have a bag of sand or gravel for getting out of this predicament.

I could have put the chains under the tires, but I didn't want to slide them in under that spinning tire without somebody in the driver's seat. When the wheel was stopped I would have needed to excavate to get the chains in far enough to grab after I climbed back in and I put the car in gear.

 

Noticed this was your first post.

Welcome to the site, and for good first post!

 

I've never gotten stuck with my prius. It is difficult to get out of a spot with deep snow. I've had good luck with kitty litter (the salt tends to make the snow melt and turn it to slush which is just as bad.) keep a bag of it under the false floor.

 

My Prius goes great in the snow and ice; I don't know what everyone is talking about when they say they have problems with the traction control. I think Toyota finally fixed the problem in the 2008 and 2009 models. all you need are good tires. [FONT=&quot]Maybe there is an update available for the computer for the traction control?[/FONT]

 

No, there is no update available for traction control. It requires a replacement of the ECU.

The reason you find traction control acceptable while many others complain is that you are driving a 2010 Gen III Prius. Traction control was improved starting with the 2006 model, but completely overhauled for the 2010. Be thankful that you aren't driving a 2004, or you wouldn't feel as good about winter driving.

Tom

 

a good set of snow tires makes it go with no trouble in the snow...i have nokian hakkapeliitta's and the car performs great.

 

I haven't read all 36 previous posts, but I live in Minnesota and we can't exactly avoid the snow here. In fact, so far, it's been our 4th snowiest fall, ever, on record this year. I think we've gotten about 40 inches so far. I'm sick of shoveling already. I don't see why anyone would try to avoid driving the Prius in the snow simply because it's a Prius. The only thing I'd want to avoid is using bad tires (as is the case with any vehicle), or in my case, trying to use my new LRR (low rolling resistance) tires I bought specifically for summer use. Surprisingly though, the LRR tires did do ok in the couple early snow storms we had before I put the snow tires on the car. For winter use, I have a second set of wheels and a dedicated set of UNstudded snow tires (Blizzak WS70, but I've also used the previous WS60 model). The car handles GREAT, just like any other front wheel drive car would. If anything, I think it handles better than the typical FWD car. One, if you've ever driven a car with a lot of power, it actually makes it harder to drive in winter time because it's too easy to spin the tires. Whereas the Prius has just the right amount of power to accelerate safely. Combine that with traction control that actually works, and the car does really well. I also feel the car is balanced well in terms of weight. I've owned a lot of vehicles, and the Prius has been one of the top non-4wd cars we've owned. I was joking the other day that I was gonna put an OEM 4WD badge on it from another vehicle.

No need for chains! I'm sold on snow tires in general, and I'm perfectly happy owning 2 sets of tires/wheels and change them out myself in the fall/spring. The summer LRR tires are mounted on nice aftermarket wheels too, and I'm also glad I remove them before winter so they don't get ruined by the salt. I use the stock (ugly IMHO) wheels for the snow tires. But we do pull the car into parking spots in reverse if there's a chance for heavy snow so that we don't have to try to bust out of the drift etc.... using battery power alone in reverse trying to get back out of the parking spot (had we pulled into it in foward gear).

The only thing I don't like about our 2004 (we also had a 2002) is the stupid snow flake "cold" warning icon. It's very annoying and I keep looking at it thinking it's going to be an actual warning light (e.g. check engine). A piece of tape is going to fix that soon unless there's another way to turn it off.....

Oh, and for what it's worth, we have never experienced any traction control problems as others have suggested can happen. We have also never owned a set of the stock Goodyear Integrecraps, and I am thankful for that. I've experienced traction control problems in other makes of vehicles, but not a Toyota (several models).

 

Sorry Tom, he's got a 2008 Prius. And for the record, my 2006 Prius has always handled the snow just fine, similar to any other FWD car. Last winter was a little dicey, but I had 37K miles on my OEM Integrities, and they were getting a bit bald. I had my first experience of being stuck on ice going up a hill and not moving anywhere. But it was sheer ice on a hill with bad tires.

I'm waiting for a good storm here so I can go to that residential road with an average 5% grade for 600 feet, and see how I do on that with the new tires compared to previous tests. I've always made it up before, but it took a little doing with several inches of wet snow (I first stop at the bottom of the hill for a better test).

I understand other people have had problems (even experienced winter drivers like Jayman) which are apparently due to the TC kicking in too soon, and I don't really have a good explanation for it, other than they changed the programming in the ECU or had two versions of it for some reason...?

 

+1 on the backing in so you don't have to back out needing power. Good advice for mud too. Prius is really gutless backing up on electric only.

I have Nokian WR tires, now on their fourth winter, still working fine, though not quite as good as the first few winters. I'll probably be replacing them next fall. So far I've got 50,000 km on them. Looks like I'll be taking advantage of the treadwear warranty (100,000 km).