Driving in the snow

As soon as the snow gets up to the rocker panel you are done.
Do you have snow tires and how far do you drive every day?

 

You will be fine. Did Denver Area Winter for a while with my sea-level Prius and the only thing I did was snow tires. Of course, anyone who's driven in the snow knows having a shovel, flares, alcohol/water for windshield deice, a blanket food and water to drink doesn't hurt.

 

Prius traction control has been known to be less workable or useful than on many other car models, especially before the 2010 model year. In a sense, it is sort of lipstick on a pig, putting the friendly TC label on a system primarily meant to protect the transaxle from shockloading after wheel spinning. But it was updated several times before 2010, so your 2008 has a better version than earlier Gen2s.

Get good winter tires, this is the best way to address the TC issues in older Prii.

 

Practice not looking like this guy:

and instead doing your best to look like these guys:

It's important to avoid giving more go-pedal input than your tires and the surface can transmit. That's been true since I had driver's training (trust me, that was way before there were Prii or electronic traction control), to avoid just losing traction and polishing the snow. In a Prius it has a further undesirable effect of putting the traction control into a kind of oscillation between taking too big a dig with the tires and then backing off too far. When you give a pedal input more suited to the conditions, it allows the electronic control to do a better job of what it's designed to do.

-Chap

 

But OP should note that video #2 shows a 2010 Prius demonstrating how its TC had improved over the prior version, such as his 2008.

In any car, quality winter tires produce better results. But driver behavior is also a very important factor, as demonstrated by the 4WD pickup in video #1.

Where numerous drivers of older Prii have been very disappointed with strandings, some others have reported excellent results. Winter driving styles-skills and tire quality likely separate these opposing views.

 

There was definitely one large improvement in the Prius traction control between 2003 and 2004 (Gen 1 to Gen 2). The system in Gen 1 was purely a motor-generator-overrev protector marketed as (ahem) "traction control". It did not have any way to divert power from a slipping to a gripping wheel.

In Gen 2 it was integrated with the braking system so it can apply a brake on a wheel that slips more, so the differential can send more power to the one slipping less.

The system in Gen 3 surely has the benefits of six years of refinement over Gen 2, but did not, to my knowledge, make the same kind of leap in technical capability that was made from Gen 1 to Gen 2.

 

I am a ski instructor. I drive 60 miles, each way, to the hill where I work. Prius, like any other front wheel drive, is good in the snow. I have never used snow tires. Here is big secret to driving in snow: SLOW DOWN! FYI: 4x4s are only designed to get you out of an already bad situation. And once they are moving more than 3mph, they are, in fact, more dangerous, because of their higher centers of gravity.

 

I agree. I drive my 4 runner slow in bad conditions and laugh when the Idiots flying by in their 4 by’s are crashed up the road. Like 4 wheel drive gives you super powers. See it on I-80 driving up to Tahoe all the time. Plus someone with chains can out brake you...Every time.

 

My experience with our Prius mirrors another posters. I have found the Prius to be quite capable in the snow. Admittedly ground clearance is a limiting factor as far as deep snow. The abs, traction control and vsc make our 2008 a good snow vehicle.

Like another mentioned the key is mature, sensible driving style with a speed to fit conditions.

 

Same as others. Don’t just trust the traction control but drive it normally and Prius is at least average or in many situations actually better.

One thing to remember is that if you’re driving a steep and slippery uphill and can’t make all the way up or have to stop for some reason and you start sliding back down. Is that you have to put the gear into reverse or neutral as other vice the front wheels are not allowed to turn backwards and you would just slide uncontrollable. This kind of scared me the first time as I didn’t know this. But maybe if you’re used to automatic transmission you would already do this anyways.

One good thing about Prius (at least gen 2) is that if you get stuck in a spot you can change gear between drive and reverse without pressing the brake or even while pushing the accelerator a bit. This makes it easy to rock it out of being stuck.

 

I should mention that "drive it normally" applies only to people already accustomed to winter conditions. Many drivers in the southern U.S. are not, and have a normal driving style that essentially guarantees collisions in slick winter conditions, in any vehicle.

My most dramatic view of this happened the day I first visited Texas, for a job interview during college. December, I drove to the Spokane airport in the middle of a sleet storm. A car gingerly passing me in the left lane (multi-lane divided highway) spun out, hit both shoulders, and eventually came to rest facing me in my own lane. I managed to stop in control (dad had given me real snow tires, which still required consider brake pumping in the icy conditions), blocking the road while she slowly turned her car around and got going again.

Arrived in Dallas to get chauffeured to dinner and lodging along with a passenger van full of other college interviewees. The driving style all around was shocking to me, with quick maneuvers and short close stops requiring very good dry or excellent wet traction. My thoughts were of the continuous collision noises I'd be hearing if they tried to drive like this in the conditions I'd just left. Back home, traffic didn't drive this aggressively even in summer when conditions allowed it.

One of my interviewers was a transplant from Minneapolis, and we did talk winter. In his first Dallas snowstorm, he drove to work normally, amazed how few cars were on the road and how many in the ditch. Arrived at work to find the parking lot empty and doors locked. Only then did he turn on the radio to learn that work and most other business had closed for the day.

 

I still find many fools who seem to have the idea that "gosh, the weather is bad, I better faster to get home before it gets worse."

I drive slowly and do not make any sudden moves/braking/turns in icy weather. I have lost traction many times and have spun a few times, but I am always going slow enough, alert enough and far enough from other vehicles that it turns into "no harm, no foul."

Just put my winter tires on the rig yesterday.

 

Prius is extremely good in snow. It's not a 4x4 truck or 4x4 SUV or an AWD vehicle.

But, for a FWD car I would put it higher than any FWD car I've driven with. Drives excellent in blizzards with normal tires.

With snow tires it drives like a 4x4 truck.

 

They do not do well.

I had an 02 Camry (4 cyl) that weighed in at 3200 lbs, rolling on Champiro winter tires. Did great last winter. Stick shift, no ABS/TRAC.
Unmounted said tires (195/65/15) and stuck them on a prius, 2800 lbs, and an inch or two less ground clearance. Way worse. Had a slushy storm of 4 inches where the car spent half the time "riding up" on snow then crashing down into a rut. The extra 10mm of tire width over stock might be to blame, but I was hoping the extra 6.5mm of height would get me somewhere.

As mentioned above, the traction control is super intrusive. I did not know it grabbed a front brake. Sure doesn't feel like it. Seems like the power just drops out.

A person can drive in snow with "some" wheel spin, as long as they don't gun it from a stand still. But this is harder with the poor programming in 2005-era.

There is a test sequence/ button dance that disables traction control, but carries the warning of potential transaxle damage.

A prius on snow tires feels like some other car on all-seasons. But my minimum is a "good" car on snows, so something has been compromised that I'm not able to recover from.

I suppose I could get "good" snow tires from NorFinland-inavia vs my 4/$109 Chinese ones, but that would be chasing diminishing returns.

Even then, once rolling, I feel the rear or whole car "skip" an inch or two sideways like it's about to break loose. It doesn't, but it's disconcerting. At least the ABS is fine, no complaints there. (I would complain about the dry-pavement pot-hole braking dropouts due to ABS but that's another story.)

 

Minimal ground clearance and an abundance of fragile plastic underbody panels nix that?

 

I drive both.

We (the state of MI) handle blizzards very well. Plow and salt trucks keep roads relatively clear...maybe a few inches/ice/black ice on the ground even if 12 inches have accumulated.

So no difference for me between prius with snow tires and 4x4 truck.

The main difference is if a parking lot is untouched...and you see there are at least 12 inches on the ground. You can have lots of fun with a truck. But you wouldn't dare enter the lot with a prius.

 

Ok, like a 4x4 truck with low ground clearance and the rear driveshaft missing.

 

I.e. on groomed roads, where 4X4 trucks are really at a disadvantage with their high center of gravity and lousy weight distribution.

All my 4X4 truck experience is on the family farm, off groomed roads. On my lastest shift two weeks ago, snow tires were fine. In a few more weeks, chains will be needed on all 4.

I.e "stuck" in all the places we actually need 4X4.