2004 Prius having major issues getting uphill in snow

snow tires will help tremendously

you are experiencing prius traction control. if a wheel slips, engine power is cut to prevent tranny failure

 

I live up a mountain and get up it just fine. Pushing the pedal down when you don't have grip is not how you move in snow. Most cars ignore you when you do that. Some cars will limit power to an individual wheel or limit power in general until traction is had and ramp up power again even if you're mashing the pedal. The Prius does not do that. The Prius cuts all power to the wheels for a good amount of time, a few hundred milliseconds, when traction is lost. This does as you describe on a hill. It is not a "known problem" it is the design of the vehicle when being driven absurdly.

You need to feather the throttle to where you have enough grip. You should know that point, not just rely on the car. And tires with only a bit of tread left is usually less of a problem of snow vs all-season tires. If your in Michigan, then you should know that all-seasons are only for places where there is only 1 season. Not for up there. You better have snows on any vehicle. The great lake ice makes that a necessity.

Snows will make a huge difference as will learning to drive the Prius with a more modulated foot. The Prius doesn't baby the traction control like most other vehicles so it can be a wake up shock to those that expect it. Disabling traction control is possible, but now you're putting the life of the inverter into random chances if you get a patch of traction.

 

If you had to walk up that icy hill in some flat, hard dress shoes, what would be your expectation?

What if you had the option to do it in winter boots? That difference is very similar for tires. It's a major improvement.

Tread depth helps- especially when snow is slushy and wet. But the actual rubber itself is a big part of it. Snow tires are made from much softer rubber, so they stick a lot better at low temperature.

Some drivers perceive it as dangerous in the sense that they don't think they can get out of the way of other traffic. That's a tough one. The traction control system is really good at finding and using all available traction. If the tires had a better grip on the road, the system would instantly recognize it and utilize it. Because you don't have better grip, it doesn't matter who is in control, you or the computer. You are both losing to the laws of physics. After all, the same system is active during ordinary rain and dry weather too. It's allowing more acceleration in good weather because you aren't losing any grip in those situations.

What usually happens is that everyone involved forgets that normal acceration and braking both go out the window in winter conditions. It's maddening when you see somebody sliding up behind you and you just want to get out of the way, but by then it is already too late, the mistakes were already committed.

 

The scary part, to me, is that when your tires have so little traction that you can't get up a semi-steep hill in the snow, what happens to your stopping distance in the snow? Stopping in the snow is problematic even with good tires but really bad without adequate tread and suppleness.

 

The difference is stopping in snow is using all four tires, and GOING in snow is only using the front two.
You have the opposite problem in Subarus. They GO far better in snow than most other cars, and people expect them to stop better too.. when actually they stop about as well as any other car... Can get yourself into trouble fast if your not careful.

I'm my opinion the TC on the Prius is way over sensitive, and most other car people feel the same. It's the Prius that is the anomaly here in behavior. I realize it's for a design reason to protect the Driveline but it is a weird feeling having all power cut, not just throttled back or thru brake distribution transferred to the other front wheel.

If I lived in the snow belt I'd have snow tires or a second vehicle for the winter time..



Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Not completely autonomously, though ... it does take some cues from what the driver does with the go pedal.

It's a little like iterative solving in math class: as long as your starting guess on the go pedal is somewhere in the right ballpark for the available conditions of the tire and road, the traction control will converge on your answer. But if you give the pedal a big goose, it will try to take a big spin with the tires, then sulk, then spin, then sulk, and never converge.

That seems to be the most often complained-of feature of the system.

(Also, no matter how careful the driver, there can always be tire and road conditions extreme enough that the only answer the control will converge on is "we're not going this way just now".)

 

This is my approach. I live in the mountains of northern California and have a very steep driveway. My wife has been driving an '06 4WD Matrix, which is getting long in the tooth (260k). I just bought her an 07 Prius for the 99% of the time that her commute doesn't require 4WD. I can now leave the snow tires on the Matrix and it will probably last as long as we need it, given that it will only be driven 2-3k/yr. For myself, I have an '88 Honda CRX for my DD and an '88 Civic Wagon RT4WD (actually 2) for snow. Another advantage of this system is that when one won't start (or needs to go to the shop) you can just drive the other.

 

True, but most of the stopping is in the front. And while stopping in the snow does use all four tires, so does stopping on dry pavement. When traction is reduced, stopping distance increases.

 

Still, it's able to do both of those things (2004 and later), when the go pedal input is in the ballpark for the conditions. It was the Gen 1 that could not, and was only able to cut power and sulk. You can still elicit sulking from a Gen 2 or later, but it has more tricks up its sleeve than Gen 1 had.

 

My Prius is the first vehicle I've ever owned it with snow tires, and that's only because I purchased it with a second set of wheels and tires that was included in the deal.

I've been driving my entire life on all-season tires, and I was not prepared enormous difference the snow tires made. I was neevous about going through winter without AWD for the first time in 10 years, but after a few runs in snow with Blizzak tires, I have no worries at all. This thing completely embarrasses my ‘17 Pacifica with all-seasons in good condition. I think a tire upgrade would solve your problems.

I don't think I'll ever be without any set of snow tires again, I’m that impressed.

 

+1 on that. The difference between an M+S rated tire and one with a Three Peak Snowflake rating is HUGE!

Love my Blizzaks, no studs needed.

 

Yes I know it can do that but me tell you even pulling out of aparking lot entering a street of Steep angle when that right front tire unloads it just chops power.
I've learned to live with it I'm just not pull out abruptly in these situations. But it can be annoying.
probably doesn't help that the suspension has 267k miles on it LOLZ..
I'm sure a new set of struts would help this a bit. But I don't want to dump the money in the car it doesn't drive on safely or bounce uncontrollably.



Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

As far as the OP’s original question. Yes that is how to disable the traction control. I would guess you would not need to disable it every time you drive the car? Good luck and let us know if anything brakes as a result of you doing this.