Help! Hubby giving me a hard time!

Get snow tires. Some people consider the OEM tires to be more like... "Summer" tires.

 

It'"s probably much worse here in Maine -- Prius was no problem at all even with the original tires -- no need to get a "regular" car based on weather. Snow tires would give Prius as much traction as regular cars. Of course, with any car, one has to know how to drive when weather conditions make roads slippery.

 

I drive my Prius in Northern Michigan. Some winters we get 240 inches of snow and who knows how much ice. I don't think you will have any trouble, or at least no more trouble than anyone else driving a car.

If you can find an old snowtire somewhere, you might want to get that and drop it on your husband. That might pound some sense into him.

Q

 

I live in NW Montana so, as you might imagine, we do get some snow and ice. I'd say that for 95% of driving the Prius is fine, as good or better than most "regular cars" on the market. However, there are some issues with the VSC on icy steep hills, or in deep snow (more than, say, 4") if you lose momentum, which have been discussed fairly extensively on this forum. I have found that if the roads are too nasty for the Prius, however, I probably have no business being out there driving around at all. Get the Prius!

 

Hi

My first thought was "Has he seen the price of gas lately?!"

I haven't had any problems with my Prius in snow/ice. Just take it easy--use some common sense, maybe get all-weather tires when the original ones start showing some wear.

I drove in a blizzard from Mt Clemens, MI to Toronto Ontario, Canada in what ended up being this winter's worst storm--we got about 15 inches of snow in 6 hours. The stability control and all the safety features that the Prius has, makes it very stable--I've read of older cars having problems, but mine is fine! I had no problems, but took it easy, stayed a good distance away from other vehicles and it was OK. It did have a couple of white knuckle moments, but mostly due to the fact that I have driven on
very few long distance trips.

If you feel better in an SUV--my son would be the first one to recommend the Ford Escape hybrid--4 wheel drive!

I heart my Prius!

Prius Prime--Donna

 

I agree. Any car (from a hybrid to big ol land barges) will perform equally better on hilly ice with a great set of snow tires / or studs. If push comes to shove, the VSC CAN be disabled, too.

 

Here in the Cleveland, Ohio area I had no problems at all this winter (in one that we broke the record for snowiest in history) at least not until my OEM tires started showing alot of wear towards the end of the season.

 

well, as a fellow oregonian, i think its safe to say others have it MUCH worse then us.

i can't vouch for personal experience yet - my prius is in today, just got the call! - but have you seen how many prius' there are running around portland? not sure where sherwood is to be honest, i'm guessing its the same around there. they don't seem to be having issues. if you husband is worried, snow tires. i think he just wants to talk you out of the car.

 

I drove my car through three Alaskan winters and then through Canada in December. I don't even have VSC. Good snow tires will get you through anything!

 

i'm buying mine from ron tonkin toyota in Portland. if you want to deal with a really nice guy, ask for 'sirak.' wilsonville toyota is a great place too, it has a beautiful dealership. test-drove a couple out there.

and yeah, i thought sherwood was close. i'm still learning the whole area.

 

The 300C AWD is very rare here, but there are a few around Winnipeg. Not sure what tire comes from the factory, but the 300C RWD is completely helpless in snow/ice, the AWD almost helpless.

I was at a red light on Bishop after one of our Feb blizzards. Beside me was a 300C. Light turned green, and I blew his doors off. For winter I run studded Goodyear Nordic winter tires from Canadian Tire, same as the Goodyear Ultra Grip 500 sold in Europe

Goodyear Eur-Winter Tire-UltraGrip 500

If you click on "Profile" a Flash movie loads about the tire construction

When I blew the doors off that Chrysler driver, he must have got mad. He eventually caught up to me, passed, and was ahead of me at the next light. I was a bit shocked to notice it was an AWD version, but on those crappy tires. Light turned green and I had to start honking my horn to get his nice person out of my way

So I passed him, and pulled into a Safeway to get some groceries. He followed me, I guess he wanted to beat me up. This skinny punk gets out, obviously it was Daddy's car. So I got out of my Prius and he turned white

I'm built like an ape, and I have a temper too. I growled at him and he took off.

All's well that ended well

Seriously, slap winter tires on the Prius and it does very well in winter. My 2004 has a very sensitive Traction Control, which cannot be defeated. Toyota changed the programming, I test drove a 2008 with still a bit of snow around, it did *much* better.

If you're allowed to run studded tires, especially in mountain driving, consider the factory studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta 5

Nokian Tires

When you consider what gas costs now, and with no end in sight, it should be a no brainer to ditch the 300.

 

moved here recently from seattle. i love portland, just need to get acquainted with it better!

 

The Prius has more torque (low end power) than the BMW 330, and that's with the electric motors alone.

BMW 330i: 330 Nm @ 2500 rpm
Prius: 400 Nm @ 1-max rpm (electric motor)

As for your Chrysler, I had a hard time finding data for that car since (as far as I know) we only get the rear wheel drive version here in Sweden but I used the data from the 300C Touring V8 that the magazine Auto Motor & Sport provided:
525 Nm @ 4 000 r/min

The Chrysler has a lot more torque than the Prius, but it's at a pretty high rpm and the Chrysler is heavier than the Prius.