Prius and high winds?

drove in a few gusts of 40+ side winds. Not any worse than the other cars on the road.

Waiting for winter and low profile. Will probably have to switch back to the gas hog, it has 16" wheels and some weight behind it. The wife only had stuck twice last winter. Hate the low 20's mpg.

 

North Dakota, where the tires go "thunk...thunk...thunk" until they are warmed up and the flat spot disappears, right?

 

You know it! Keep mine indoors for the most part. Have a couple that sit out, they go clunk until warm.

 

Yes, if your reflexes are any good. The first time to practice driving in crosswinds should not be in a tropical storm :_>

 

Yes, I'm in Florida and I had some concerns with it going across Tampa Bay on I275 last week before the current storm hit. I've traded it for another car so I won't be doing any more wind tunnel testing.

It looks like we won't be affected much by Fay over here. It's not even raining. It's a full day at work

 

I drove to work both yesterday and today. Admittedly, I'm on Florida's east coast; we were just getting gusts into the 40's. It just wasn’t a big deal. Had it be raining like it was last night between say midnight and roughly 3 AM, I wouldn't have, but that was more about blinding rain than wind.

Frankly, the Prius handled alot like any other car under those conditions. Yes, I could feel the car being blown around a little, but it was certainly no better or worse than my previous cars. That held true even when I was driving perpendicular to the direction the wind was blowing.

Having come from a Jeep and a Ford pickup, I was much more cautious of standing water, but that was more about the height of the car off the ground than anything else.

 

Before the Prius had its alignment done at ~5K miles, I would say that it was a bit unnerving to drive during heavy cross-winds on the highway (I-280 in San Francisco).
It was a bit unstable to say the least, probably with winds much slower than 50 mph.

After alignment, the Prius seems much more stable. It's not as stable as my wife's Volvo S40, but not as scary as it was at first.