worried about the snow and a few other things...

You should definitely test drive with regard to shaking and acceleration, but imho it is fine on these scores.

2010 handles great on snow, provided it is not dragging. Like any mid-size car (or a bit worse) it has little clearance. Ruts in crusty snow could tear off the plastic undershields. If I needed a hybrid with clearance it would have to be the Ford Escape Hybrid or the Hilander Hybrid.

 

You may want to look at the Ford Escape Hybrid, cross-over SUV, that comes in two and four wheel drive. It won't get Prius MPG but it is a nice hybrid and has just been updated.

Living in North Alabama, I don't get many opportunities to test snow and ice. But in part of my brake experiments, I tried to do 'bad things' with it. Maximum braking with one side on snow/ice and the other dry pavement, no problem. Maximum acceleration up a steep hill (grade > 10%) turning on ~1-2" of snow/ice, no problem. Maximum braking and turning in parking lot with patches of pavement, no problem.

Perhaps these technical charts might help:


One last thing, the Jetta TDI advocates hate Prius traction control because a Prius can not spin the tires like they love to do. There have been some reports that the NHW20 had problems with some steep, snow covered driveways, well beyond the grade found on normal roads and streets. But I've also seen reports by 'Prius goats' who put SUVs to shame. Mostly it seems the Prius responds much better with snow tires but this is not something I'm likely to be testing any time soon.

Bob Wilson

 

The OEM tires are notorious for being pretty poor on snow. I'd suggest upgrading your tires if you think you have a problem in the snow.

 

With good snow tires on, mine did just fine. It is not AWD and it is light. In all, I think it did as good or better than my 97 Carmy.

 

I live on a mountain, in the Rocky Mountains. I get much more snow than you guys do in PA with the sole exception of last year's freak dumping. Also PA in general is very flat. I have an uncle in eastern PA, and my dad was out there for a while so we have driven the whole state from west-east to north-south. Yes there are hills, but they are not mountains. I saw no terrain that a Prius with a good driver behind it could not climb.

The Prius does not have great ground clearance. However, the "snow plow" method works fine. I have successfully driven in snow that covered 1-2 inches above the bottom of the door. First you dig away an opening so you can actually swing your door open, then you rock back and forth a while making a little bowl and getting more snow under the tires instead of around it, then gun it. Get enough speed and the snow just billows out around you. Note, this works effectively on roads that you know. With this sort of snow, the sides of the road/curbs/babies/whatever are hidden in a solid blanket. The only snow that I could not rock out of was when I woke up one morning and the hood was gone. You could see the top of the steering wheel through the bottom parts of the exposed windshield. Suffice it to say, when I saw that I turned around and went back inside for the day.

Spinning the tires is a legitimate winter driving technique. It takes a lot of control to maintain steering with random grippy-patches interweaved throughout the icy expanse. And it is doable in the Prius, I have done it. You must first disable the traction control which takes a long dance that I am sure you are aware of, and then you go. The car says "Problem!" but it works. It can damage the PSD/Powertrain, but I trust Toyota engineering enough that a few exposures to shock wont severely limit my Prius's lifetime drivability. When I use it, I generally stop near the bottom of the mountain, turn the car off/on/off/on with the button combo to get the traction disabled, then climb my mountain pass and go home. I have not really found another reason to use it.

Also this is on 2 season old, all-season tires. Winter tires are nice and make a big difference, but if you are a good driver you dont really need them. The car is more than capable, it is the capability of whomever behind the wheel that makes or breaks it.

 

My wifes goes through the snow just just fine. We are in upstate NY. If you want to feel secure, buy snows.

The dash is quiet in both our 2010's and my MIL's (see sig).

You want quick acceleration? Hit the power button.

 

There is a way to turn off traction control I read about (can't remember). A guy had a problem on some weird steep hill but it requires trickery to get it off because it's on in part to protect the transmission.

Honestly, I am in NY and I expect this thing to do much better in the snow than my minivan (no TC) or my last car, a Maxima, which was epic crap in the snow (no TC plus manual transmission causes problems unless you wanna slip clutch a lot).

Don't worry about snow. For power it's "fast enough". Its 0-60 is 10 seconds. That's slow these days but 20 years ago people seemed to live. In truth I don't floor it often. When I do I realize it's not a performance car but it has perfectly fine power for hills, etc.

Shaking have not experience myself.

 

Don't know what kind of winter you have and I have owned my Prius just a couple of summer months, but the biggest Finnish technical magazine (Tekniikan Maailma) made a winter test for 18 new car models. New Prius shared the first prize with two other cars.

 

Cool. Any chance you have a link to an English version of that article?

 

The Prius is a front-wheel drive vehicle. It is not 4WD or an ATV.
You are the only one who can make a decision on whether or not it is suitable.

If you are thinking of driving in deep snow with the Prius, forget it; it has low clearance, like most similar cars. However, it does resonably well otherwise on winter roads, assuming you have a set of winter tires.

I have a Prius for the gas milage, but I also have a Cherokee for deep-snow winter driving.

 

I know this had been talked about before, but as this is my first winter with my Prius (still have my manual shift Subaru Forester) it has been on my mind a bit: what is the very best snow tire I can buy for my Prius?

 

Hi All,

I found this: Vuoden Talviauto 2010 valittu . If you google to it, you can get it to translate....

 

The two challenges to driving on snow and ice is traction and ground clearance. Traction can be addressed to a degree with proper snow tires. Ground clearance will always be a problem in deep snow for a Prius.
As has been stated, the biggest variable is the drivers ability. A good driver can get by in most anything that's reasonably set up in most conditions. An inexperienced or overconfident driver can get stuck or crash in even light conditions.
That being said, we live in Colorado, and get a fair amount of hazardous and unpredictable weather. We kept the ML500 SUV and my Ram 4x4 pickup for winter driving. The Prius will sit in a warm garage waiting for dry conditions.

 

Well, here's the most recent review from Tire Rack: Continental ExtremeWinterContact

 

Look, I live in Joisey. We do get snow over this way. I drove through last winter's relatively snowy season without trouble.

After the first snowfall in December I grabbed my student-driver daughter, found a great big, 4" deep snowed-in, slippery parking lot, and skidded the car around for a while. Then traded seats and had her skid the car around for a while.

Fishtailing: Couldn't get it to do it. Tried to do doughnuts: The best we could do was to get the car, at full power, with the steering wheel canted as far over as possible, to skid with the body inclined about 30 degrees from the direction of travel. Let go the wheel and the car straightened right up, no fishtailing. The car goes where you point it and resists skidding out of control, lots.

I think it has to do with the regenerative brakes. As I understand it, hitting the brakes, at least initially, engages the front wheels and electric motor(s) to slow you down but doesn't touch the rears unless you hit the brakes really hard or you're going slow. The natural tendency of a car like that when, say, you hit a patch of glare ice when you're braking already would be to swap ends. Hence, the designers stuck in the stability control, complicated brake system, and the fancier-than-normal ABS that all kick in to prevent that.

I was once in a '71 VW in MA when that happened on an interstate; the road went from black and wet to glare ice in an instant, with cars fishtailing at 60 mph all over. I managed to get the beetle under control, then the guy in the lane next to me lost it and punted my car into the weeds and two feet of snow. Fun. Not. I'd've killed for stability control, had I but known back then. The Prius won't keep the people around you from losing it, but it'll sure keep the panic level under control in your car.

I haven't driven in deeper than 4" or so with the Prius. That old '71 VW did get hung up on the body pan a couple of times, but the snow was a lot deeper back then. I've heard reports that Gen II and earlier didn't do well in deep snow but haven't heard about people getting stuck and not being able to rock in Gen III yet.

KBeck

 

How do you do donuts in a front wheel drive car

 

Sorry but the article is only in Finnish and it is not free, but here is my own translation about the conclusions what they say about Prius:

"While waiting electric cars Prius hybrid technology already functions at winter circumstances. None of the tested areas are just excellent but there is no excessive gaps. Thinking of the fuel consumption, cold hybrid system is 'only' a little better than the best conventional cars, but after getting warmed it is excellent. Although the hybrid car produces remarkably less waste heat, heating system works well. Traction slip control is one of the best. LED lights are not quite good when there is snow on the mark, the light somehow vanish to white landscape."

 

We have the V with TOYOs on it.......anybody driven in snow with this combo