Tips to get out of snow - street parking

Same as any other car. Slow, slow slow.

 

All good ploys. Consider also angling the wheel hard over to one side, see if you can make a little progress, then hard over the other, and try for a bit more. Carry on, zig-zagging your way out. Hopefully...

Up here, the land of "hardly ever snows", the X-Ice go on mid-November, come off mid-March.

With 15", best stay home. Even with anywhere close to 10", same story. The Prius is low-slung.

 

Probably you don’t even have any problems. Although I have don’t know much about all seasons as here you have to use winter tires in winter.

But if you’re stuck in a place just change the gear between reverse and drive with little to no pressure on accelerator pedal. You can do that with no brake applied. It doesn’t cause wear to transmission unlike in normal car as Prius transaxles reverse just works by changing the MG2 direction.

Key is to rock it out of the place without losing the traction and spinning the tire(s). Start with no accelerator pedal and learn the rhythm to get it rocking. If that’s not enough for it to jump out of the hole, just apply a bit of accelerator and keep going.

 

What others have written are right-on... Another thing to check is to make sure the vehicle isn't high-centered at all. These vehicles are so low that it's easy to do. Digging under the cars is hard, of course. I once had to use a pair of skis to get the reach to clear out the snow under my 2007 Prius. Good luck!

 

When I lived in the foothills of the Rockies the Prius was my better half's car. I always had to plow the driveway down as close to the ground as possible.

I kept a set of chains in the car but never used them. However, I always used studded tires and that helped once out on roads with compact snow and ice. Your state may not allow studded tires, and IMHO, that's a shame.

For your kind of snow, I much preferred my 4WD Ranger and AWD Safari... they were beasts! As I type this I'm watching a FOX News report from Boston... largest tide, heavy snow, low temps and high winds...

Brr..God bless you all. Good luck on digging out. IMHO, stay home and hunker down.

 

Might also be the traction control kicking in. Do you see a flashing yellow light when you push the gas pedal?

 

Yeah it is a safety device for the transaxle, it protects it from overevving mg2 since the electric torque, plus for example let’s say you spun the wheels up to 20 mph on snow but then the car suddenly hit asphalt and grabbed it would destroy the transaxle. I have temporarily disabled it to get up a out of a farmers market field.

 

If you’re stuck on a spot traction control doesn’t hurt you at all. Traction control allows way more slip than optimum.

Problem with traction control can happen if you’re going (relatively) slowly on (relatively) steep uphill.

 

Flooring the pedal was never a good idea.

 

When I try to get out of snow, I always find it better not to turn the front wheels or not to turn them very far. I try to park where I can back out (park on corner) or pull forward (driveway).

 

You don’t have to brake to change between drive and reverse on gen 2 Prius. You don’t even have to lift the accelerator. So changing between drive and reverse is the best option in gen 2 Prius.

On manual transmission car that one way rocking works the best as you can just press in the clutch to get it to neutral. With automatic transmission car still wants to go forward with no accelerator pressed.

 

I did that back and forth the last time I got stuck, in a side of road snow pack. Got me out.

 

There’s no problem in a Prius like I mentioned in my previous post on this thread.

Changing dirction without stopping is bad for most of transmissions including manual, traditional automatic, CVT, DSG, and more.

 

I'm not worried at all if we get snow dumped here, I watched a segment on the local TV that explained how to handle winter weather. First she had the hood up and pulled the battery terminal cover up and said if you see green stuff built up here, get your battery checked. There were a couple of other "tips" and she ended showing a Nissan Altima stuck in the snow and explained how to get unstuck, just take the floor mat and jam it under the rear tire for traction. And now you know, 15" of snow now no problem.