Does your Prius get stupid on wet snow and ice?

When you say backing up ... did you go reverse ? or did you do a 180 and go up hill ?

 

The Prius handles quite competently on hard ice and any type of snow. Good tires enhance the performance, of course. Only times I have had issues were when the snow was about 6" deep and unplowed, and on a steep parking area covered in thick glare ice. Never got stuck, though.

 

Personally I find the Prius to be excellent in the snow, far better than my FWD Lexus. I haven't experienced any of this trac rendering the car immobile. I think its probably an issue of learning how to drive this particular car in the snow. Out of our two cars, this is the one I choose to drive in the snow.

 

Try going half way up the driveway, then stop, then try to start again. That was the way it happened to me and the car completely stalled, went dead. I had to back up downwards to the black top and then start again. It is fine as long as the car keeps going. Once you stop on snow going uphill, however, then I found it difficult to make it start going again. That is when the traction control took over, in my case.

 

Thats what happend to me on an 04... I wonder if they "cured" the problem on 06's

 

Does your Prius have Vehicle Stability Control (VSC)? When I play in the snow with my VSC Prii, it felt quite sure footed, even with OEM tires . . . no left/right anything.
If I lived in snow country, I'm sure I would get a set of good winter tires on their own rims - but for my purposes OEM is ok.

Speaking of snow country, only one you posters in this thread so far has bothered to place your location in your profile. Please do it . . . it can help you get a correct answer to a question.

 

I had a 2005 with MichelinX-ice snow tires stop dead on my very steep driveway. It wouldn't do anything till I put it in reverse. Scarry. I now have a 2006 with the same Michelin tires and I have not had the problem. Maybe it has been corrected. By the way, it was not my driving that was the problem in the 05. I've lived in the same house for 25 years and have had about 25 different cars, and not one besides my 05 Prius ever stopped dead.

 

My experience:

Living in an area of rolling hills, on leaving my driveway I've had to pass on to a dirt road where there's a need to drive up a rather steep hill. In both mud and snow I've been forced to take running starts to make it to the top. I don't always make it. Sometimes I'll get two thirds the way up and the car simply doesn't want to go any further. It's not that the hill is in such bad condition, it's the fact that both front wheels will reach an area where they both start to spin .. the car simply won't let that happen and it just stops trying (it won't even let me try to 'rock' my way out of the situation). Thus, when this occurs, I back down the hill long past my driveway (scary when it's slippery) to get the best possible running start. Once it took three tries before I finally reached the summit. That was last winter. This winter we're in drought thus no new experiences of this sort.

I accept the fact that this is simply the CPUs protecting the hybrid drive apparatus from damage (motor/generator, etc.). If the weather here was severe more frequently I'd definitely get snow tires. As it stands I've replaced the stock tires with the Michilin Hydroedge. So far I've felt significantly more secure with these than I did with the originals.

 

It's a 2004. Got it in March of that year. It would be interesting to know if the newer Prius's function differently than mine in situations like this.

 

I'm curious too. I have an '05 pckg 6 with ABS, VSC, the works. I have no problems at all. I think the year and the VSC have something to do with it.

 

This is very interesting. i wish we could start a poll on this.

The only problem is if someone did not experience this he might not know what we're talking about, so the poll would not be effective.

That was my only pet peeve about the prius.... But i still got an 06 Great car all in all.

I will be thrilled if 06 doesn't have this problem.

 

Mine is an 05 with package 6. I would also be curious to know whether Toyota perhaps heard last year's and this (early) winter's complaints and silently fixed the problem without announcements in the 06 models. If so, I would be willing to trade.

 

Actually, except for Nav and garage door opener I have all options including VSC and traction control.

Maybe this issue is a thing of the past and has been corrected in the later models. I hope so. I do plan to replace this Prius with a new one sometime in the next year or two.

 

I have a 2004 Prius with the standard Traction Control and the optional VSC. Trust me on this: the wheels will NOT spin. Impossible. With all-season tires, this car is impossible to drive on slushy snow and especially ice, it just stops moving.

When I first had the car, after a major blizzard I went to Polo Park, a local mall here. I had Michelin Harmony "all season" tires on, my winter tires hadn't arrived yet. I wanted to take the ramp to the upper level open parking, and the ramp makes a sharp turn so a run-up can't be done.

Ahead of me was an old Chrysler, I'd guess mid 70's vintage. More rust than car, all banged up. But it did have fairly new studded tires on. Made it up the ramp no problem, even left a blue smokescreen for me to follow.

I got about 1/3 up and the car stopped. No wheelspin, no nothing. The VSC icon was flashing on the dash. It didn't matter if I lightly pressed the gas or floored it, nothing. I had to back down and park what seemed a mile from the nearest door.

At green lights, the car would barely move, and I always worried about getting rear ended. The many times when I found myself with one wheel on dry pavement and the other wheel on ice, same thing: nothing.

The winter tires made a huge difference. I had Dunlop Graspic DS-2 last winter and Yokohama Ice Guard this winter. A sticky winter tire really helps.

I did try to get it stuck in purpose into a snowdrift at my hobby farm. I discovered you can NOT "rock" the car to get unstuck. Once the traction control algorithm determines you have poor traction, the wheels will *not* turn.

My Dad has a 2003 Buick LeSabre and it also has traction control, though it can be defeated with an override button. The traction control in that car is much more intelligent: if one wheel is on dry pavement and the other wheel on ice, the car will move normally. With studded Cooper WeatherMaster ST/2 winter tires, the car is almost unstoppable.

If Toyota has actually changed the traction control algorithm for 2006, it's about time. I hope they offer a TSB to us 2004 owners. I have spoken to a small number of '04 owners here in Winnipeg and they have the same complaint.

 

How can we confirm with 06 ? unfortunately (or fortunately) ... winter is over where i am...

 

A quick recap of my TC experience at Tahoe.
I was on an uphill on ramp to I-80 with minor slush and hard packed snow. I got up to about 45 mph near the merge start, then hit some deep slush-snow(about 4 inches?) and the car started to coast. I floored the gas-let off the gas-eased backed on the gas, just coasting. I pulled into traffic, got on drier pavement and started to accelerate. Scary.
2004 #6 with VSC.