Was -10f when I left yesterday morning. Never driven it in such cold temperatures. Started right up, although for the first couple minutes letting it warm up, it was vibrating terribly. Not a vibration from misfiring, it's like the normal engine vibration was more easily transmitted through the steering column. I can't explain what caused this. Have you ever used a gas weed trimmer? It felt similar to that. The ride was...quite rough. I imagine the viscosity of the hydraulic fluid in the struts/shocks was much thicker than normal. So you didn't have much dampening, at all. I noticed the regenerative braking system was not working on the way to my destination 20 minutes away, stopping distance was increased roughly 30% as a result. I know it was not operating because not only was the distance increased, the regen braking system emits a whine when it kicks on, which I didn't hear. It did work on the way back. Now here is where it gets interesting. When I got onto the highway to merge, and floored it, the engine would rev up, then back down, in sort of a loop. I'm not sure if the gen2 has a rev limiter? If it does, I've floored it before during normal driving and never noticed it. The battery gauge acted normal. When the engine was "looping", it wasn't low or anything. No extra lights came on. I've started vehicles before when it was this cold and usually it throws up an error or two.
The engineers decide how much power can go in or out of the HV battery and program limits into the ecu. When everything is crazy cold, they likely have very conservative limits that reduce powertrain performance but also won't damage the battery. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
I wonder if the rubber in the engine mounts and other suspension components becomes so much stiffer that there is a noticeable increase in vibration transmission.
