is the prius safe to drive in snow?

Absolutely its safe to drive in the snow. In fact its quite good in the snow.

Just be smart about it. Ground clearance is low, so remember that snow over 5 inches or so is going to start building up underneath it.

 

The Prius is fine to drive in the snow. There are just a few inches of clearance so you don't want to go driving down too many unplowed roads. I must say that the traction is improved with my new Michelin tires as opposed to the Goodyear Integrity tires that the car came equipped with.

 

I totally agree. I found my traction on the Integrities improved by moving to 40/38 pressures instead of 35/33.

 

Driving home in a snowstorm recently, I encounterd groups of cars on the Interstate creeping along at 40 mph or less. I felt comfortable doing 50 mph in my Prius. I find the Prius to be reasonably good in snow, even with OEM tires.

Harry

 

The only problem you may encounter is going up steep snow packed hills. A friend recently had trouble accessing a parking lot at a ski resort, and had to resort to using a more distant. lower lot.

The problem is the traction control may prevent the car from spinning its way up steep slippery slopes and will bring you to a dead halt. Good snow tires or chains will help.

Other than that it will handle as well as any other car its size, maybe better if equipped with Vehicle Stability Control.

 

I consider the Prius with traction/vehicle stability control to be a poor winter car. The traction control essentially shuts down all forward progress at the slightest slip in the drive wheels, making it impossible to maintain forward momentum going up a slippery slope. Better tires improve traction significantly over the factory tires and somewhat reduce the problem, but do not eliminate it. Toyota needs to put a switch into the VSC cicuit so it can be toggled off under such conditions. If this happens to you it's usually possible to CREEP (and I mean CREEP, at maybe 1mph or less) up the hill--very dangerous with traffic coming up behind you.

 

I'm willing to bet Toyota did learn from this fiasco, when you consider how transparent the Trac works in my FJ Cruiser. It actually applies a brake to a spinning tire, and only if you ream it will engine torque be reduced.

With my Toyo Open Country G-02 Plus studless winter tires in 265 75 16 size, my FJ in 2WD can blow the doors of awd cars and 4wd pickups running "all season" tires

Since I can so easily compare the Trac performance between 2 Toyota models, it only makes me disappointed in my Prius.

That said, with my very aggressive Goodyear Nordic studded winter tires from Canadian Tire, my Prius is a very good winter car especially on ice. Snow is very good up to about 5 inches depth, especially if rutted. Then forget about it

The Goodyear Nordic is the same as the Goodyear Ultra Grip 500 sold in the EU. This site explains the tire, and if you click on "Profile" you get a nice Flash presentation.

Goodyear Eur-Winter Tire-UltraGrip 500

I highly recommend this tire to Canadian Prius owners if they regularly drive in true winter conditions. The tire is very reasonable, around $122 including studding and mounting/balancing. However, due to the tread design, very noisy on dry smooth pavement

 

The problem is the hybrid system, wheelspin can cause significant damage to the hybrid system. Thats why the trac is so over-zealous. I've had several cars with VSC/Trac dating back to 1998 and the Prius' system is much more limiting of wheelspin.

I don't really consider it an issue, you just have to anticipate grades.

 

I live in New Jersey and have never had my 06 Prius out in the snow. Whenever it snows I use my Jeep Rubicon Unlimited which is unstopable under just about any conditions. However, once I did encounter an icy uphill driveway with my Prius and had a great deal of difficulty due to the traction control. Basically the car came to a stand still preventing me from going forward or backward. It was impossible to rock the vehicle as we all have done with conventional autos.

As others have mentioned, I think it would be a good idea for Toyota to install a "traction control over-ride" button so that you can manage your own traction when you need to.

 

I wish they would install a anti lock brake bypass switch also !!! I had an accident about 2 months ago and i am convinced that the anti lock is what allowed me to hit As some of you know who have read any of my posts, i race a car also. And ANYONE who has ever raced HATES anti lock brakes. Oh sure for the average person driving along on some slippery surface its fine for braking and steering. My accident happened on a bright sunny DRY day. Oh well Cest la vie !

 

Recently returned from the flatlands of Iowa. While we did not encounter a blizzard and because they cover the back roads with gravel and the roads themselves were empty I did not find it to be a major problem.

Had these roads been more popular I would have had to slow down considerably because driving 55mph on icy gravel roads meant I was not in control of the car 100% of the time.

The VSC and the ABS help.

 

I think it's important to remember that with ABS, the car will usually NOT stop quicker. The primary advantage with ABS is that on certain slippery surfaces, you will be able to maintain steering input while braking.

The best example of when ABS is a bad idea is driving in deep snow or on gravel roads. ABS will usually result in much longer stopping distances compared to locked wheels

Anybody remember the Chevy trucks from the early and mid 1990's with standard ABS? The system was so sensitive to wheel lockup it overreacted almost all the time, resulting in much longer stopping distances than normal

It was popular back then to pull the ABS master fuse - I think it was either a 40A or 60A - and force the brakes to work as normal brakes

 

This must depend on the features or year of the car. I have a package 1 2006 (auto-traction and ABS but no VSC) and have had no problems with the orginal tires in either snow or ice. It's never entirely shut down on slippery slopes, it will spin and grab, spin and grab. I've deliberately tested it on the steepest slopes I could find and found it to be better than my wife's Honda Accord. Not as good as my previous car, a Subaru Outback with AWD, but that's just to be expected.

 

I have lived in Central Oregon for over 13 years...lots of snow, ice and mountain terrain. I picked up a Prius last week and love it.... but.

Last night it snowed and the stock tires on the car are a snow/ice disaster in conjunction with the traction controls. The car couldn't get out of it's own way.

I went to Les Schwab this morning with a set of 1 season snow/studded tires ( 205/60R15) mounted. Hugh difference in handling, not perfect and worse than my other FWD car, but certainly acceptable.

A expect to loose a few MPGs, but that is of little consequence if the Prius is in a ditch...

 

I live in a hilly suburb of Denver, and I can make it out and about in the snow. It does feel like I'm slipping and sliding a bit more than I remember, but I lived in TX for 7 years before moving here, and my last car that saw any regular action in the snow was a manual transmission. In fact, I thought my tires were going, so I asked the person at the tire shop when I went in for my 30k maintenance, and he said that I had 3k more miles left on my tires. When I mentioned the slipping and sliding, he pointed out that the car is very light, so the traction isn't as good as on a heavier vehicle. Sure, it slides on turns more than I like, but that's probably a function of going a bit too fast. I've slid through the few odd intersections even when I was driving my (ancient) small SUV, so I think it's mostly the weight of the vehicle that causes most problems I've had.

 

GreenLady, if you only have about 3k left on the tires and they are most definitely well past their prime when it comes to snow & ice traction. They may be OK on dry roads and passable on damp roads, but with any significant amount of precipitation on the road any tire will do a lot better.

 

I live in Vermont and am looking to buy a used Prius. How important is it to find one with VSC? In a small place like Vermont choices are few and far between. Finding a good one with VSC is a challenge!

We have a Subaru for real bad weather so the Prius will be a second car for us in the winter.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers
(a soon to be new owner)

 

Well, it snowed quite nicely here in Milwaukee today and I was a bit skeptical about how the Prius would handle it (based on other comments I've read hear and on other sites).

All in all, it was odd at first, but I blame that on the newness of it all. Once I became acclimated to the car and snow combination, everything seemed to work just fine. Sure, the tires aren't necessarily the best for snow, but again, I think it's all in how you drive. I found the whole experience to be a learning one, but it worked well for me - and almost none of the local streets were plowed worth a damn.

As for starting in cold weather, this thing starts like a charm. I wish I had it parked inside a garage (my wife gets priority on the garage) and I wish I had an engine block heater (of course, not being the garage doesn't help), but I haven't had any issues, even when it hit the negatives overnight.

So far, this is a great vehicle for driving in the snow, but you have to work with it.