Question about tire spin

Excellent advice.

 

Wise plan! Advance notification (to all three) may eliminate gunshots, you may wish to call ahead (to the property owner you use) when you need this fall back plan.

Had you not purchased yet, I would have shown you my 'what kind of owner should NOT own a Prius' post, but at this point it would just be rubbing salt into your wounds.

 

Buy a good set of 4 studded snows, I recommend and use General Altimax Arctics. Traction control can be disabled, look up the procedure for placing the car in inspection mode. Try not to spin extremely fast in inspection mode. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. I think you will be impressed with the cats winter performance with good tires.

 

I never realized this was a "problem" and we've been through 5 winters now. We do have good ice/rain traction tires.

Quoting F8L on a similar thread:
Buy better tires and problem solved. Those oem Integritys were pretty horrible. The Prii after 2005 were much improved with reduced traction control sensitivity.

 

Traction control doesn't "work" without good tyres. Get some good tyres and you may be ok without having to disable traction control.

BTW, I would NEVER attempt to disable traction control. It just isn't worth risking $5000 to $10,000 damage to get somewhere close.

 

When I lived in Rhode Island we had a wicked incline in the driveway from our road which was a four lane state highway. One evening after work, I took a running shot at the hill in my front wheel drive Cadillac. After my first slide down the driveway into the roadway, I rented a bobcat and made a double wide parking place at the bottom of the driveway. I spent $700 for a carport and had a new winter parking spot.

I can't imagine attempting that driveway without the power of the a V-8 under the hood or 4X4 or both. Dang, I'm glad to be back in Georgia. No snow!

 

I am surrounded by hills and in the worst of winter I let the tyre pressure down a few PSI I have not been stuck anywhere yet and have been able to get up hills many others haven't. I run standard M&S michelin tyres 205 50 16 in summer and the winter pair are 205 55 16 this is manly due to cost and availability.
I would not recommend disabling traction control but I might look it up as an emergency reserve, I have seen the instructions posted many moons ago. I hope this helps

 

I can't imagine what the power of a V-8 would do on that driveway other than polish the ice even faster.

Would better tires have helped?

 

I managed to resist commenting on the "V8" ice polishing dinosaur but seeing as I am not the first.

 

DO NOT let the tyre pressure down for snow or ice. You need good tyre pressure to make the tread clear properly and to make the sipes work properly (remove water).

IF you slip just before the top of the hill and stop then -maybe- taking a "run" at the hill could help. More likely it will guarantee you will loose control on the way up.

The 2008 has the "corrected" traction control system and will likely keep trying and crawl up the hill IF the tyres have -some- traction. If they have no traction you won't move. There are no miracles involved in switching traction control on or off. If you switch it off and spin the wheels all you will do is polish the snow into ice, which will yield even less traction than snow.

The technique most likely to succeed is slight pressure on the accelerator to try to keep the systems from over-reacting to slip. Just enough to make the car crawl. If it won't move with this, park it at the bottom and clear the hill of snow/ice or add sand. Or wait for nature to deal with it.

 

I agree--keep the tire pressure up. You get more ground pressure with more air pressure. You don't want flotation on snowy roads. That's only for sand or certain off-road situations.

I do try to keep the traction control from engaging. The traction control on the '07 lets me spin the tires a little faster than the ground without cutting down the power which works well for deep stuff. For a short hill, I'll approach it with a little momentum and then gradually let the pedal up as I reach the top to keep the front tires from breaking loose on the climb.

I wouldn't disable the traction control. It's there to protect the system.

Tires do make a world of difference. I have some Hankook Optimo H727's on now and they've made it an amazing snow car. The traction control and ABS very rarely engage these days.

An option for additional hill climbing traction is to climb the hill in reverse, if you're comfortable with it. That way, the weight transfer of the slope is adding weight to the drive tires (which are now in the back) instead of removing weight. Climbing is the weakness of front-wheel-drive cars because of that weight transfer. The Pri does have limited torque in reverse though, since the engine isn't capable of helping. The forward torque is excellent for crawling through snow--I wouldn't want a V-8.

 

Would the V-8 power help? At that time I had two vehicles, a Saturn and a Cadillac. I did find that the weight and power of the Cadillac helped me out in the snow up there. My tires were all weather tires but as I discovered those should have said all weather except snow. Needless to say, I didn't like Rhode Island snow much.

 

Good snow tires are a must. Ditto the crawl advice: the Prius drive system makes it impossible to stall the engine, so it is feasible to use minimum accelerations (and thus very low speeds) to avoid breaking tire grip.

 

If the guy from Alberta says you need good tyres and advice on how to drive in snow, then I'd listen to him. I believe residents of Edmonton know a thing or two about snow

 

I've read that the software (or hardware?) was changed earlier than 2008 (as mentioned before) with regards to wheel spin. I own a 2004 and the TC is very, very sensitive. Since the 2004-2009 Prius have the same engine and virtually other shared components, I'm wondering why the 2004 models (and subsequent model years) can't be updated to reflect the less agressive TC threshold. Anyone venture to take a guess?

 

We don't have to guess. This topic has been discussed before, and the answer is known. TC became less sensitive in 2006, but the firmware changes cannot be applied to the earlier ECUs. You would need to swap the ECU for a newer unit. Whether that is possible I don't know.

Tom

 

Last year I visited some friends out in the Berkshires - they live at the top of a very steep and long dirt and gravel driveway. When I got there the driveway had been plowed, but was covered with packed snow and ice - I could not see any of the driveway. I was pleasantly surprised to have absolutely no issues going up or down. At the time I had almost brand new all-season tires - they had been on the car for only 2 months or so.

Best of luck this winter - I hope that with a good set of tires and extra vigilance you will be just fine.