prius c, excelent in the snow and ice!

Our first snow here was a couple weeks ago followed by freezing cold. The C handled the snow just fine. Of course, I always accelerate and stop slowly to maximize fuel economy. In the snow everyone else was driving the same as me for a change Fuel economy tanked though. Too much friction on snow covered roads. After the roads were cleared it came back up, but not as high as before the cold. The engine just has to run longer to get warmed up and running the heater takes it that much longer to warm up and stay warm. The gas stations switching to E10 for the winter ain't helping either Still kicking butt over the 93 Camry V6 I traded for the C

 

I just had my first experience too here in Denver last week. It handled perfectly! I also have an Audi A4 AWD and Prius C actually did better in some situations. I don't think it could handle more than 4" of snow, but it did awesome on ice. I was VERY impressed!

 

boy I had the opposite experience - practically new tires too as in 8900 miles and rotated once at 5k.
Got stuck in a driveway ! admittedly was uphill but not crazy so... probably 3 inches of snow max. My take is there's just not enough oomph in a Prius. I'm not a noob in snow, if I had this experience in the past I wouldn't bother posting.

Absolutely love my Prius and bought it to get killer gas MPG so I'm still good but will choose my spots this winter as we also own a RAV4 and Forester

edit - sorry, same idea but my car is a Prius Plug-in. Was searching to see others experience and didn't notice this was for a Prius C ....

 

sorry to hear it. My Jeep Grand Cherokee also has an awful time climbing my driveway when it's icy... I have pretty decent tires on it too....

 

The Prius has plenty of oomph, question is, did you have traction control on? If so, that's why you didn't get the oomph transferred to the road.

 

handling in treacerous conditions is ptrimarily a function of the tires and limited slip differentials and 4 wd. out of curiosity what brand and line of tires are on your Subie and Prissy? Its for data bank, not questioning.

For small cars open read designs and narrow section tires of OEM or slightly larger diameter improves traction in snow and icy conditions; nothing really helps when the ice is glazed tho. Even one of my neighbors who drives a WRX sTi is trapped on full ice roads even on his rally Michelins ! he used to compete so he knows driving 100 mph on treacerous roads.

 

yeah that's part of my point / problem - it wasn't treacherous it was just some snow !

It was up a hill - probably 3% but two other cars had just made it up the same drive with no issues.
I will add that I later in the day in worse conditions made it around town with no issues - it was just this up a hill from a non-moving condition.

The tires are the tires it came equipped with - Yoko's My suburu is older and is on its 2nd set - will verify because my daughter has it out right now but thought those too were Yoko's possibly different version.
Personally I wouldn't compare to the Forester given its 4 wheel drive but I've had a Passat and Avalon that both performed better than this

 

I've had pretty good luck with my C2 in the snow, but, yesterday I couldn't go forward on my uphill driveway which was covered with ice. I had parked the car there several hours earlier instead of in the garage. I was disappointed until I realized the error of my ways. I had driven the car about 100 miles on the freeway before parking on the icy grade. The tires were therefore warm and in all likelihood melted slightly into the ice and also caused the ice to be very smooth. The solution was simple, back up to the road and then proceed forward. No problem. I should have remembered my previous car, an Audi A4 Quattro with snows, had done the same thing several years ago. Snows will be mounted on my C2 when I return from a Florida trip (Can't wait to see what kind of MPG I get). As an aside, I enjoy my C2 far more than that unreliable and expensive to operate Audi.

 

Well, it snowed some more here. With the snow tires and slower driving (probably the key thing here, since physics takes over if you try to go too fast on slippery roads regardless of your vehicle/tires), my Prius handled snow covered roads fairly well. It was still kind of scary on the freeway pre-plowed, but I managed to make it home okay from work at night. Thankfully there weren't too many cars on the road at the time.

There was a guy who was following my car on the freeway, as I followed far behind a semi-truck also going slow. I was averaging 35-40 miles per hour in the snow (again, the city plows hadn't hit this stretch of highway yet), and after a few miles, he changed lanes and sped up, since the roads were slightly better further down.

A few miles later, I see his car with its emergency lights on. He appears to have spun out and hit the median, and his car was facing the opposite direction of the lanes. While the car didn't seem terribly damaged as I glanced at it while passing by, it wasn't moving either.

Now, I really do not regret going slower, and more importantly, buying some snow tires. Having spun out before, and having hit a curb, I think I learned my lesson on trying to drive fast like other people when roads are slippery.

 

a block heater would do wonders for you
and a aftermarkte seat heater ;-)

 

Good thing he was well past you by the time he spun out.

 

I had the same experience when I went from my P.O.S. SUV to my hybrid. SUV slid all over the place and every small(er) car around me on the road had no problem. Prius c seems to keep better traction compared to what I remember from when I had my SUV.

 

I find the C somewhat better than my Gen1 in most regards, but I think the traction control is more sensitive and wants to cut power more than the original version (I realize the transaxle has also been modified, so perhaps the more sensitive TC is a consequence).. The hybrid system has always been very safe feeling- any slippage or loss of control, simply let off the accelerator and the car recovers almost instantly; in really bad conditions, shift down to B.. On the C, the addition of vehicle stability control makes the driveability even better..

So basically, if the car is moving, I don't think I've driven a better car in the winter, but if you're not moving or stuck, then the worries start- I got stuck temporarily for the first time in the C last weekend: big snowstorm and back country roads were not all plowed yet.. Everything was great until I had to turn onto a side street where it slopes downhill very slightly and the next street slopes about the same uphill, so the intersection is the lowest spot and as I turned onto the second street, the traction control kicked in and I slowed down more and more until I was at a standstill- it would not go back up the next street, even though the slope was next to nothing.. Luckily I could still back up part way, which is what saved me, as I was able to build up some speed the next time, which got me out of the deeper snow in that intersection.. I have excellent winter tires, and they are superb when the car is actually moving, but again, that overly sensitive TC is definitely a detriment..

I've got a printout in the glove compartment that tells you how to switch to inspection or certification mode (if I read it right, it's the same procedure, but 3 stomps vs. 2 to get to cert mode- the difference according to the service manual is that in inspection mode, the engine always runs, but in cert mode, the engine can shut off, but both modes disable TC)

 

I can understand not wanting to allow totally uncontrolled spin as even on a regular non-hybrid transmission, uncontrolled spin at high RPM on ice and then hitting dry pavement and suddenly going to very low RPM is hell on the mechanicals, and on a hybrid, this is something to be avoided: between possible shredding of gears and the back-EMF voltage spike , something like this would probably really do a number on the hybrid transaxle and the control electronics, so I don't really want a complete disable..

I would just prefer a TC function that allowed controlled slip.. They have a huge amount of control over the motors in the transaxle and could let the wheels spin a little without any risk of damage, and this would allow you to continue moving vs. coming to a standstill.. I recall that on the the 2001, the times I got hung up on a berm that the snowplow left at the end of my driveway (I thought I could make it over, but no such luck) that there are some situations where the tires would continue to spin slowly even though the car wasn't moving- in this case, the car was held up by a wedge of snow underneath and the front tires were literally off the ground, but hitting the accelerator did cause the wheels to spin slowly, so *if* my wheel had been on the ground, I would probably have been able to continue moving.. This didn't seem to happen on the C2 as I think the VSC was applying the brake (the 2001 only had TC, but did not have stability control).. Perhaps unplugging or otherwise disabling the VSC would allow the wheels some controlled spin?

 

Gen2 (2006+) allowed some spin. Gen3 even more.

C cuts the power like (2004-2005)?

 

I don't know- I didn't intend to get stuck and I didn't open the door to see if the wheels were spinning as I just wanted to get out of the snowstorm, but the car stopped all forward motion and there was no sound of wheel motion or inverter/motor whine regardless of how light or heavy the accelerator. Usually you get a bit of forward motion and then things stop if you get stuck, but in this case there was nothing- the car did not move at all- pressing the accelerator resulted in zero response from the vehicle- no motion, no noise- it's as if the car was turned off. Only shifting into reverse got any action out of the car..

 

same experience here and like an earlier post - I don't want to go through a routine of pushing this twice and that 3x to override the traction control - I'd like one button.
I just wanted a 2nd car for my wife and daughter to get around in - I can just hear the response if I give them those instructions ! and I'm not someone bashing the Prius - I'm totally thrilled with it the other 350 days a year

 

Sounds like gen2. The wheels do spin. Rocking back and forth did the trick. Part of the problem is the LRR all season tires.

 

I have aggressive snow tires on all four wheels. We finally got a good deep snow so I have been able to see how well the car performs. I am pleased to report the C does very very well as long as you have enough undercarriage clearance to keep moving. I'm really happy I got the snows.