Slip warning with spare tire

Nope no button. Very aggressive anti skid system. Toyota got a little carried away. Get that tire off asap.

 

1) Inflate the spare tire to 60 psi.
2) If that doesn't help, move the spare tire to a rear position.

 

Yea... the traction control is primarily about protecting the hybrid drive train instead of actually getting better traction. If I ever get a flat front tire... I'll for sure never put the spare on the front because of possible damage / same damage that the traction control is trying to protect the car from.

 

Good to know. And while we are on the topic, really Toyota, really? Did you have to paint the spare tire such a "stick out like a sore thumb" color?!? It already looks like a 10-speed bicycle wheel, there really is no need to draw any more attention to it

 

It might be by design.

I can't find the post but I thought RonDawg on Tivocommunity (he's a cop) posted about them intentionally being a weird color for safety reasons, so that people know you're running on a donut and your speed is limited.

 

^^
After some digging, I found his post. Here's an excerpt:

 

Funny. The first time I saw the Prius spare I started looking all around for the rest of the wheel barrow.

 

One other fact that has not been mentioned, the Prius spare is not designed properly for the lug nuts on the Prius. Look closely at the donut spare and you will see that the holes where the studs go thru the wheel are tapered to fit a "standard" lug nut, and not flat like the standard wheel. IMO, the Prius spare is not really safe to use because the lug nuts could possibly work lose. You can buy standard lug nuts for the spare, but that is bordering on insanity. I understand why the color is awkward, off etc but I don't appreciate the difference in the design where the lug nuts come into play when using the donut spare.

 

Has anyone bought a full size spare so they don't have to worry about being crippled by a fake wheel? My last car (Subaru) came with a donut but the spare tire location could hold a full size tire. I doubt that'd work in a Prius, but I'm gonna look into seeing if a mod could be done to make it fit somewhere.... I sure wish lots of flat tires to the Toyota designers that think donuts wheels or worse a can of fix-a-flat is a legit solution for Prius users.