Did you survive this first winter mess?

Here in Montreal we got 23.8 centimeters, nearly two feet.

I prefer not using the Prius on such days, I prefer my wife's Yaris. I *hate* VSC in deep snow conditions. Makes it impossible to do controlled skids.

I also don't like having to jump 4 feet tall snowbanks to exit side streets into boulevards. If I don't power-jump it, the car lifts up, the front wheels dangle, not enough traction, and I get stuck.

Whereas with the Yaris, I can drive up and over it slowly, rotating the wheels right/left at high speed, and get out.

The Prius VSC prevents one of the wheels from spinning wildly, they both turn slowly.

SOOOoooooo, I use the Yaris 5 or 6 days out of the year.

*** My garage mentioned to me getting metal studded winter tires, that most *other* VSC Japanse cars suffer from a sensitive VSC, all have this problem.
(Other then 4x4 or AWD cars) In fact, he mentionned on how Jap cars don't have a button to deactivate VSC, whereas US designed cars do have a turn-off switch for the VSC.

Another example with the Yaris, I can do a controlled slide on an iced highway around a stopped car, without crashing, and maintaining most of my speed. Just keep on going.

With the Prius, I cannot initiate/test such a condition, all I can do is let go of the gas.
If I turn the wheel left and accelerate, to avoid a stopped vehicle on the right, VSC will kick in, and I keep going straight.

Like in a snowed up parking lot. Driving straight to a light pole, at 20MPH, and trying to control / skid around the pole.

With the Yaris, I let go the gas, turn the wheel left, pull the rear-brake lever, gas a bit, release the rear-brake lever, turn the wheel right, gas a bit.

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...../---\.....
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With the Prius, when I tried it, I ended up bumping into the light pole at 2MPH, LOL. Only my pride was hurt.

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I suggest you all try it, to gain the proper reflexes, before you become part of a 20 car pileup on the highway, because all that people do is Brake Hard and beeline into the stopped car in front of them.

You need to *not* brake, but steer. Give it gas in the next lane to turn ON the VSC if the car starts to vacillate / see-saw.
Braking, activating the ABS, should also help gain control. Just do it in *another* lane.

IOW, practice at Wal Mart at low speed, buy an orange cone, and try *not* to kill the cone. Steer away from it at different speeds, and different distances.

Trust me, use a cone, instead of a lightpole like I did. Or, a Snow Man. But you'll have to build him often !

 

I think you mean Traction Control, not VSC.

That was my biggest complaint about my '04 Prius, the hyper-sensitive Trac that I couldn't easily defeat. Getting aggressive studded winter tires helped, but in situations say a snow drift across the road where gunning it will help you get through, the Prius would just grind to a stop

Oddly enough, my FJ also has Trac without a defeat button. It usually works well enough that I don't have to worry about it, as my FJ is normally rear wheel drive, and a brake is applied to a spinning wheel

Shift into 4H, and Trac is detuned. Shift into 4L, Trac is disabled. As I run studded snow tires on my FJ, I've never had to use the rear diff lock - at least not yet

I'm wondering if some of these car makers really do test their cars under severe Canadian winter conditions? The best test would be a small uphill grade, one side dry pavement and the other side glare ice

My '04 Prius would promptly have failed that test. My FJ would apply the brake to the wheel on glare ice, and make it up the grade. So would any other vehicle that applies a brake to the spinning wheel

 

Thanks Jay. I meant Trac.

Wish I could defeat it, wouldn't mind if it came back on at next on/off of car.

Too bad the next PHEV Prius (2011?) doesn't have it.

Having that EV-13 battery pack and plugged into AC power, means a true Remote Heater for the car when it's parked in my driveway. I'd still use the EBH.

 

Can the traction control be turned off on the Prius? Most vehicles will allow you to turn off TC for such situations.

 

Wow! I didn't know was such a thing as a "controlled slide". Any "slides" I get into ususally cause such a pucker factor that I have to have the seat surgically removed from my butt!

 

FYI 23.8cm equals 9.37 inches, or about 3/4ths of one foot. (if it were 23.8 Inches, then it would be only .2 inches short of two feet).

I ended up with about 18 cm (or 7 inches) of snow this week, and I am happy that we missed the deep stuff. Though I'm sure it won't be long before we get walloped with another storm.

 

Some call that drifting.

This is my all time favorite drifting video!

7 minutes of drifting

 

Not really. It is a safety mechanisim designed to prevent overspin on the electric motors.

 

comment deleted

 

That storm hit San Diego on Monday with some nasty rain... the Prius was driving like a slug in all the adverse conditions, but that's probably a blessing in disguise.

Winter is finally here, and the Prius has survived quite will... the heated seats work well when the early morning and late night temps are in the low 40s F - brrrr! And the Solar Roof package works great at regulating interior temps so I only needed to use the AC once this week

 

Low 40s. :doh: That's August weather for us. I'm hoping to see 10°F today.

Tom

 

No problem, I didn't drive my Prius because I am not going to expose it to salt. Instead I drove my Rav4. The prius will rest in the winter like a ground hog.

 

LOL me mixing up my centimeters like that. 1 inch = 2.5 cm

Two feet of snow in 24hr would have been a catastrophe!

 

It's not that bad if you have the right equipment. We get snowfalls like that every once in awhile. With this last storm we have had about two feet in the last three days, but it has been heavy, dense snow. Even so, 50 mph winds have blown it around a bit.

Tom

 

You need a "winter front" to block the grille, then it will warm up. With my '04 Prius, in city traffic at -25 F and colder, it simply would NOT warm up unless it had the winter front

With the winter front, even at -40 the motor would stll turn off at red lights. True, it only turned off very briefly, but it would turn off

My FJ also sports a winter front. There is a day and night difference in heater performance, especially at -20 F and colder

Especially if you routinely have to deal with frozen diapers in the driveway

 

Well we had about 13 Inches of snow yesterday with severe blowing and drifting snow on top of that.

The car handled quite well, except that last night when I came home from work, (work 4P-12A), I noticed that the car acted like I had a flat tire...

It seemed to be thumping...I can't see anything wrong with the tires, so does anyone know if somehow the snow that builds up in the 17" wheel area (not the wheel well), if that causes some "imbalance" condition that could cause this??? Or was it maybe from the deep snow initially I drove through until getting into more paved road areas??

Not sure it was quite unnearving on the way home last night...?????

 

Mud and ice inside the wheel can cause some severe imbalance issues if it won't come loose. Can you isolate it to one wheel?

 

I've had that happen on more than one occasion and on more than one car. Typically it happens when I back into deep snow.

Tom

 

It's apparent the drivers in the video are all highly skilled and it looks like fun. I suppose they have sponsors or deep pockets that allow them to frequently purchase rear tires.