Big Snow

My Prius did very well this morning. Had the kids shovel the driveway and ran some errands. I went to an empty parking lot and tried several things with the car (turning, stopping, accelerating, etc.) and the darn thing maintained great control despite the snow on the ground. It does take a little getting used to, though.

I am very happy with my car.

This is my first post on this local club...I live in Naperville and commute to Skokie M-F...the Prius makes it more enjoyable.

BTW, I am looking for someone who can either help me or do a integrated XM install for me...any ideas??


-Rick

 

Re: Big Snow - St. Louis experience

Had about 8.5 inches of snow last night. I have a 2008 with Pkg. #6 and the OEM (Goodyear) tires inflated to 38/36.
Drove I-70 east in Illinois; it's away from the normal "busy" flow of traffic going into St. Louis, so it wasn't plowed very well early in the morning. Ran into some minor drifting snow and things were pretty slick (saw a few cars in the ditches). I drove pretty conservatively (around 45 mph).
The car did fine - although I wished for higher ground clearance a couple of times. It seemed pretty stable, somewhat similar to my 2003 Camry.
After driving around 30 miles on I-70 I got off on a secondary road to get to work. While approaching a bridge I hit an extremely bad slick spot and the car started to spin. The VSC light/tone came on and I recovered the car fairly quickly. The VSC seemed to do its job well.
In summary, I think the car didn't do much better or much worse than most FWD cars (with the additional benefit of the VSC), which is fine with me.

 

I drove full size Chevy van before the Prius. With a snow conditions on my street similar to this morning I'd have to take a running start with the van to muscle up the incline at the end of my street, and pray there were no cars coming as I pulled on to the main feeder street in my town. The Prius just took the slick little hill in stride with no running start and I felt in total control the entire time.

I drove conservatively this morning from Aurora to Elgin on Route 31 around 7:15. Roads were snowy and in various stages of the plowing cycles. The slipping car signal on the dash flickered a few times but I didn't feel any slippping.

Moving from a main road to an unplowed side street looked threatening with a bank of plowed snow "blocking" the end of the side street. However, the Prius went right through it, and again, no slipping problems occurred on the unplowed street.

The only place I felt a little fish tailing was on a street where sewer work has been ongoing. Clay from the digging had mixed with the wet snow and created a soupy mud slide several inches deep down one street. After two blocks of negotiating that mess I took an alternate route.

I just drive a base model Prius with original tires but I'm a happy camper!

 

Ours did fine, but then 10" of snow is nothing unusual for us. I just took two feet out of the driveway yesterday morning.

Tom