Get snow tires. Stay off the roads for at least the first day, if there's a serious blow. Avoid driving into snow deeper than 8", no matter what tires you have. Bring a shovel, and maybe a bag of kitty litter, some carpet scraps, all for traction. Don't let your tank get low, keep it topped up. Keep a blanket in the car. (How do I know all this, it NEVER snows here anymore, lol.)
I'm still waiting for my first Prius-Winter here on PEI.... If it was anything like *last* winter....
BTW, you can use 195/65R15 snow tires, even though your OEM are 17". There's a Corolla rim that'll work: Snow Tires for 2014 Prius | PriusChat
We shift to studded tires in winter. We end up driving on ice frequently, without studs you would not be driving. With studded tires; then things like sand, cat litter and carpet scraps all become un-needed. 8 inches of loose snow is the practical limit to driving a Prius. At 8 inches is the point where a Prius begins to high-center. So much of the vehicle weight is supported by under-carriage that tires no longer have grip, When visibility is less than a car-length, then you should not be driving anyway. We would never stay off the roads for a day following each storm, you would rarely leave your house that way. A shovel is good for when you slide into a snow bank. Be familiar with how to install the towing eye-hook, and carry a tow-strap.
It depends a LOT on the type of snow. Heavy/wet snow: somewhere just above 8", you start to hang up, get nowhere.
I'm essential personnel at work and must get in even during blizzards... Had zero issues with the stock Persona tire setup this past winter. Never got stuck or spun out. As the tires wear that might change... The one huge storm we had I borrowed my fathers RAV4 just because he pretty much begged me to for safety reasons but I am confidant that the Prius would have made the trek.. My wife drove our old 2013 Prius three all winter back when we owned it and she always used to say how good it was in the snow....and she's a Cali girl who hates the snow. Lol Then again the winter prior I was crazy enough to tough it out in my old rwd 2014 Charger RT plus with the stock tires and 20"' wheels... Zero issues yet again. Granted that was a heavy car with good traction/ stability control... Def. Get snow tires if you feel you must and if you live in the snow belt BUT the most important thing is How you drive.... Aka. Don't tailgate, don't slam brakes, anticipate, etc... Drive pretty much how you would for optimum mpg...
Where we live, we normally see one snow storm each week, on average, through the winter. Our driveway is 120 yards long. I have a tractor with a snow-blower that I use to clear our driveway. When it has snowed less than 8 inches my wife has no problem getting out. But anything more than 8 inches, and I need to clear the driveway first. Most of our snows are dry fluffy, it is too cold here for wet snow. Regular snow tires should be fine for snow. In my region studs are needed because we drive on so much ice. The road going through my town will ice-over and a base-layer of snow/ice will be on it until spring. We only drive on exposed pavement during warm weather, OR when we travel to one of the cities where they use salt [but their tax revenue is a lot higher to allow those cities to afford so much salt].
I keep reading about people saying they drive their Prius in rough parts of the NE with the factory tires and it works OK because the Prius is back heavy. There's no manual traction control which scares me. MotoG3 ?
Take those Persona wheels off your Prius before the snow falls! Get some 15 inch wheels (Prius OEM alloys or steel) and put some aggressive dedicated snow tires on them. Salt, rock chips and sand will eat your nice 17 inch Personas. General Altimax Arctics are moderately priced, can be studded, and are very good on all types of snow, while being quiet. There are snow tires that do pretty well on ice without studs and are more expensive, but will not perform quite as well on thick wet snow. Without studs, the General Altimax Arctics are also fairly quiet and quite durable. Just about all snow tires have become less noisy on dry pavement. Put your snow tires on just before the snow hits and take them off as soon as you can in the Spring so they'll last a few seasons.
So I can't drive in snow 100% without snow tires? I checked all over the internet and there are tons of people claiming this isn't true. I don't drive in a foot of now. It may snow when I drive here in WI, but maybe through 2-5 inches. I wouldn't drive in deeper snow. Nobody would. MotoG3 ?
I live well North of the 'snow-belt'. Our town is 'low-lying' along side a river. We are also kind of rural, homes are a mile apart, the landscape is all dense forest. Our ground freezes solid every winter going down 4 foot below grade. When the ground temps are below freezing, and the river puts off fog, the mist freezes on the pavement and forms a sheet of ice, called 'black ice'. It looks like clean clear pavement, but it is as slick as an ice-skating rink. Once we start getting snow, we pack it down to make a base-layer. The plow trucks set their blades lightly on that base-layer and they keep the fresh snow removed. We will not drive on pavement again until the next spring. Also our rivers and lakes freeze-over, allowing vehicle traffic. So instead of driving 25 miles to the nearest bridge, to cross a body of water, often the closest route is to drive straight across. A lot of my driving is on ice. Go instead into a city, they dump salt on their roads, and their plow trucks push downward on the blades. The blades wear-out faster and they wear-out their pavement a lot quicker. The salt, plow blades and pavement cost a lot, and it makes those cities to require a lot higher tax-base to pay for all of that. New England includes both urban and rural. The majority of Maine has population-density of 1 to 10 people per square-mile. It depends a lot on where you live in New England, as to what your driving conditions will be. Some people insist that their cities use salt. Whereas the rural people prefer to avoid salt [and higher taxes]. My nearest city is Bangor Maine. If I lived in that city, I could likely do fine with factory summer tires. But living there I would never be on ice, and likely never drive on more than one inch of snow.
We have found, from our own driving experiences, that our Prius 'high-centers' and gets stuck in 8 inches of fresh loose snow. 6 of 7 inches of snow and it does fine. My wife commutes daily. Before she leaves for work, I check how deep the snow is in our driveway. At 8 inches [or more] than I need to fire-up my tractor and blow our driveway clear. Otherwise she can get out okay.
This is what I have been reading and reading. My fear is getting stuck when I'm driving up a hill let's say.....the Prius has no traction control button that allows me to escape those situations. MotoG3 ?
Your Prius traction control will actually -help- you, not hinder like the earlier version. You want to leave it working. If you are just driving in the city or short trips on the highway, winter tyres won't wear too fast. Long trips on the dry warm highway will wear them very fast. I like to wear them out in two to three years anyway, because they become useless after that. As I have posted before, a set of -good- snow tyres will cost you around $500-$600. If you slide into something -once- it will cost a -minimum- of $1000 (new bumper cover and paint + labor). If you slide into the path of something BIG you could loose your life! Good snow tyres are cheap. I have driven Pearl S in the "snow" on limited occasions over the last three years on the OEM stock -summer- tyres. I usually use Bruiser, my FJ Cruiser, due to ground clearance issues with the Prius. They don't clear the snow here on side streets, just plow it "level", about 4" deep. Yeah, right! Anyway, I didn't have a problem each time. Other than having to swerve around ice potholes etc. I WILL eventually have to buy tyres for Pearl S, but have been holding off because I drive the FJ in the winter. When I do buy tyres I will probably get some "real" "All Season" tyres, such as Nokian WR GIII, though a friend drives year round on Nokian Hakas, with no wear issues. Our max. temps in summer here are about 30 deg C (around 80F), and that is only for a few weeks. So I'm considering them as well.
