Snow driving my new Prius

From a dead stop, my 2008 will pulse-spin the wheels in very slippery conditions, clawing its way out. Many post-2006 owners have observed this behavior, whereas pre-2006 seem to just stay dead and the wheels wouldn't move.

Other threads have discussed wether this improvement was available to pre-2006 Prius as a "flash upgrade", but I didn't follow those as I was not affected.

 

I've gotten out and watched my Prius spin the tires. It will spin them fast enough to throw snow. From the inside I can't even tell the tires are spinning, except occasionally when I hear snow hit the inside of the wheel wells.

Tom

 

Ooooh, how I hate the traction control on snow.

I got 4 Winter Yokohama's in Oct 2007, so they are only in their third winter season. With less than 20K miles.

It does make a huge difference, compared to the all-season stock - no surprise.

However, I much prefer driving my wife's Yaris with the same (smaller) Yokohama's (which were just changed to Bridgestone ICE) on snowed streets.

It's real bad leaving a stop sign, as the final stopping clogs the wheels with snow, and taking off again kicks in the traction control immediately.
Thus crawling at 1MPH for a few seconds.

BUT - I have never gotten stuck - even though the Prius does lots of "body surfing" due to being low on the ground.

We get lots of snow here in Montreal, Quebec, I almost wish I had gotten an Escape Hybrid instead - considering snowed & iced streets for at least FOUR consecutive months.

Those other eight months I love the Prius though !

 

I have tried the Yokohama Ice Guard 10's. They work great in snow, are a bit better than "all season" on glare ice, but tend to cause wander at highway speed.

The Dunlop Graspic DS-2 provides a bit less ice traction and about the same snow traction, compared to the Yoko

I strongly encourage you to use studded snow tires on a Prius. They made a *huge* difference with my Prius. I'm currently running the studded Goodyear Nordic from Canadian Tire. I also like the looks of the General ALtimax winter tire at Canadian Tire, it can be studded

On glare ice, my Prius with the studded tires is superior to my FJ Cruiser running studless Toyo Open Country G-02 Plus winter tires. The G-02 Plus is a great studless winter tire, but I'm going back to a studded tire on my FJ

I'm on the pre-order/wait list for factory studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta 5 SUV. I tried to get some this fall from Kal Tire but it seems you guys in Quebec bought up all of them.

 

I can tell by watching the speedometer (and if I lower my driver window, I'll hear the whir sound). It will go from 0 to 10 km/h, and then back down if the wheels are still spinning after a few seconds.
It will then repeat that pulse-spin. I just keep the gas pedal floored. There doesn't seem to be a limit to the number of pulse-spins it will do.

 

Only boredom or the capacity of your gas tank.

Tom

 

This is the second winter in my 2008 with Nokian WR's. I've had no issues with traction at all. To date, this is the best winter car I've driven (though ground clearance could be an issue in some conditions).

 

All the 04 to 09 Prius's do the pulse spin in slippery situations. The problem is the wheels stop between pulses. I've never heard anyone say the pre-06 Prius wheels stop dead and don't move. That has never happened to me in my 05 Prius. The problem is that the wheels stop momentarily. When going up a slippery hill, stopping the wheels, even for an instant, sometimes is enough to stop the momentum of the car. This has happened to me and many PC owners.

Re the flash upgrade, I've had all the flashes done. It didn't make a difference. That's what others have said too on PC. In other words, flash upgrades did not solve the problem.

Based on what you're saying, it appears the problem exists in 06 to 09 Prius's as well as in the 04-05 model. The problem IS the pulsing. Good TC systems don't bring the wheels to a full stop. Pulsing sometimes does on the Prius. This is what has put me and other Prius owners in life threatening situations.

As noted earlier, just because you didn't get stuck with pulsing TC doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. If you were in the same situation as other drivers who got stuck (ie: hill grade, surface conditions, tires, etc), you might have gotten stuck too.

And for those who say better tires are the solution, that's not the point I'm making. Better tires obviously can help a lot. But the TC will still stop sometimes even with the best tires available. That should never happen. It is a flaw with the system. Probably all we can do is put better tires on the car. But if enough people complain about the flawed TC, Toyota might come up with a flash upgrade or some other way of fixing it.

 

With 9-10" snow today, I made it to work. I got stuck the moment I got out of the garage into the private parking space. It wasn't plowed and the snow was higher than the Prius ground clearance so it was "floating" on the snow.

A guy with the FJ cruiser helped me pushed it out of the thick area and I was off. Once I got on the plowed road, there was no issue what-so-ever. I took some video of today's experience. I'll post when I get home.

 

In my experiences I'm VERY glad I chose to put on snow tires for the winter ... I took them off early for a long road trip to warmer climates and was greeted with wintry weather after arrival home and the tires made a HUGE difference imho.

 

Looks like there's a vast majority consensus that:
-The objective is to not get stuck
-The best way to reach the objective is to install good snow tires

 

I also did a bunch of snow drivin' today, including a couple
of quick donuts around a parking lot just for fun. Occasionally
there were piles of deeper, slushy/slippery stuff at intersections
that made getting going again interesting, but the answer is *not*
to just floor it and wait, the answer is to feather it delicately
on about like you'd do on a gentle takeoff and wait. That's
when the system can work best for you, and tends to *not* pulse
and stop but rather keep persistently cranking the wheels slowly
until you get clear of the slick stuff.
.
The other fun event was helping shovel out a *Bobcat* that had
somehow high-centered itself over a curb and had generated its
very own patches of glare ice under each wheel and wasn't goin'
noplace. Even with trying to push down and away on the ground
with the edge of the front loader, this thing was stuck-ola.
All four wheels would spin just fine, and that was what had made
the nasty ice patches in the first place despite the fairly
aggressive dirt tread on the tires. After we got some of the
packed snow out from under it, a guy in a plow came along behind
and managed to gently push the corner of the 'cat sideways just
enough to move the wheels over to some fresh snow, and out he came.
.
That's the last vehicle I would have expected to get stuck...
.
_H*

 

Actually, they are *very* easy to high center and get stuck. I rented one for about a month when I was building the home at my hobby farm

After the first week, I was ready to build a trebuchet and launch that mother F Bomb thing clear into the next Rural Municipality.

Seems I spent more time hooking up a chain to my Sierra and yanking that F Bomb thing out than actually using it. I'm sure they work just dandy on paved or hard cement surfaces, but you couldn't PAY me to own one

 

You should try getting a full sized bulldozer unstuck. :doh:

Tom

 

i had a fair share of snow driving experience today driving from paterson NJ to pittsburgh PA. sheesh, saw about 30 wrecked cars and 14 jackknifed tractor trailers. had 2 close calls myself.

VSC= win
stock tires= lose


also, not in snow, but last summer we got a nice sized backhow stuck in the riverbank mud once when my dad had me bring a downed tree out into the river. turns out backhoes break through the few inches of hard dried mud that seem solid when you walk on them. took uss all afternoon to get it out (and the dang tree is still stuck exactly where we dropped it). good times.

 

My first real drive with crappy roads Monday AM. was very pleasantly surprised...hydroedges in packed snow/slush were just great! about 80 miles and no problems! took my foot off the gas and the lack of momentum just brought me to stop on several occasions! of course my milage was only about 40 mpg... but safety first!!!

 

I'd just say To Hell With It and walk away.

 

Loser in an suv + half bald "all season" tires + glare ice under snow = ditch

With studded tires, my Prius does very well on typical icy streets. For deep ruts and drifted snow on the gravel sideroad to my hobby farm, the FJ gets used

BTW: the FJ runs fairly pricey Toyo Open Country G-02 Plus winter tires

 

This was exactly the setup for our worst stuck bulldozer experience. We were removing dried mud from a marina dredging operation. The bulldozer was driving back and forth on top of the dried mud, breaking it up, and I was picking it up with a bucket loader and dumping it into dump trucks. The bulldozer strayed off to the far tree line, where the mud was still wet under the crust, and down it went. It took me all afternoon to dig it out with the bucket loader.

Tom

 

I've just had my first experience driving my Touring'08, stock tires, through "real snow" (4 inches...)in Washington DC. I merged onto an uncleaned street where everybody was driving very carefully, 20mph max, with plenty of room between cars. To my dismay, after I entered smoothly, the traction control took over and limited my speed to less than 10 mph, despite my efforts to accelerate. As I said, everyone else was being extra-careful, but I caused a back up on the flow that could have resulted in an accident. Any way to override the traction control on-the go or even disable it before starting the trip?