Prius Winter Performance During West Coast Winter Storm

well we didnt do too bad, only about 5" new. but its kinda turning to rain which is getting ready to freeze so it will be a disaster tomorrow. its already making everything a slushy mess.

 

I have been having some fun this week visiting my parents in the Northeast. Unfortunately I'm stuck with the OEM tires but it hasn't caused me any problems. The biggest challenge was one driveway which was plowed but very steep and typically difficult to navigate in the winter. I watched the traction control light blink the entire way up but the car did its thing nicely. I also got to play on some snow-covered back roads the other day as I tried to get back my feel for winter driving. I could just about get it to break loose but VSC won't let things get far out of hand. Not at sane-person speeds, anyway! These really are decent winter cars, at least with the more recent traction control programming. I would certainly want to mount up the Blizzaks if we were expecting any "real" winter weather, of course.

 

I went out last night looking for unplowed streets to see if I could get myself stuck. The only problems I had were executing U-turns in intersections. I'd get stuck in the ruts, but a bit of rockin' and I was free. VSC is beautiful for making turns... just turn the wheel in the direction you want to go, and press the go pedal!

 

i have been doing the same thing for past 2 weeks we have had this weather. street parking is a premium around here but we have pretty much established parking spots with our neighbors. we only park one car on the street, most others park two so they leave our space alone.

now i live in a housing development with $89 a month dues. i figured the least they could do was shovel the public walk in front of the house, but they did not so i cleared our private walk and porch along with the public walk in front of the house and a section of the street which i did today. had to rock and dig for 30 mins to get going today for christmas gathering.

so i just finished clearing out more of my parking space enough to get 6 feet of rocking space front and back.

hopefully it will not prove to be too tempting for anyone

 

More snow today. Another 5 - 10 cm, according to the forecast. And the plow's been by again, so I have to dig out the car once more. I'll be hiking out for provisions anyway, can't I just leave it till Spring?

 

Over the past two days, we've received 12" of snow and our Prius has done very well. We purchased a used 2007 with 23,000 miles on it, and when we went on the test drive, the pavement was dry. Two days later it snowed and my wife called me from town to inform me it was going back as it was trash in the snow. I ran into town, drove it and realized the Goodyear tires on it, although M+S, were junk in winter condition. I took it to the local tire shop and had STUDDED tires installed as they're legal here in Alaska - what a huge difference. I've drived AWD, 4WD, RWD and FWD vehicles, and the Prius does very well even though it is very, very light in the front end.

 

Were Vancouver streets really snow covered for a week? That would surprise people here in Seattle where the local mythology has it that other major cities are expert at keeping the roads clear of snow and ice even in the most ferocious winter storms.

Despite many streets that are snow-packed by design instead of actually cleared (really, it's true); my 2007 Touring with the original tires, was able to get me up and down Seattle's hills to the places I truly needed to go.

There were many times I wished I had snow tires, but in the past I didn't want to deal with the hassle and expense. I did buy chains two years ago, but they didn't fit despite the label that says they are supposed to.

Still, the Prius never got stuck on the hilly streets, (I planned trips to avoid the worst of the hills).

I did have to dig out of some street parking spaces in order to give the traction system a little bare pavement to work with; and I did get stuck briefly in an unplowed grocery store parking lot.

BTW, does Vancouver use salt on the streets? We don't in Seattle and now salt is regarded as a miracle drug that the Mayor won't use because of his enviornmental fanaticism .

 

AlaskaPrius, would you mind sharing which brand of studded snow tires you are using? Thanks.

 

Sam's Club specials are what we purchased. They are Pacemark (Kelly) Snowtrakker ST/2 studded 185/65R15 studded tires. They are made in Canada by Kelly (Goodyear) and you can get the studded or unstudded. They cost us $348 installed for a set of four at Sam's Club in Anchorage. The roads were very bad today and the snow was very deep but the Prius went through it all like a small tank. They ride nice and are very quiet for studded tires.

And I'm sure there are those who will question the lower mileage using studded tires on a Prius but as our Toyota service writer said, "Your mileage really goes to heck when you're sitting in the ditch waiting for a wrecker." Yes, we were averaging 44 mpg before we put the studded tires on and now average 40.7 which is a tradeoff we're willing to take for the extra margin of safety in the winter.

 

is 4 tires really necessary? wouldnt that be like getting two sets of chains?

 

In order of importance:

YES, four "proper tires for the conditions" are absolutely necessary!
If you just put snow tires on the front wheels you would increase the chances of spinning by a large amount (even just releasing the throttle could cause a spin).

No, Vancouver isn't able to clear the roads for at least a week at a time. I'll give them a break however, as 20-30 cm of snow every 2-3 days would even tax Edmonton, and we actually have a -fleet- of snow plows.

I did get a laugh when they reported (with video) "here is Victoria's snow plow at work".

Lived in both places. Winter and snow is a rare thing, and neither are prepared for either. Oh, and most vehicles are not equipped with "proper tires for snow application", AND the snow they get is the heavy wet stuff, which is the worst traction wise.
OUR snow is the nice light "dry" stuff. It just pushes aside most of the time when you drive in it, sometimes squeaking loudly. Also, once our temps drop below about -15C you get good traction even on ice. It -ELIMINATES- the liquid water film that forms on the surface of the ice which is what lubricates it. Unless you use full throttle, causing the tire to recreate the liquid film.

 

The point of using four winter tires is so that handling is balanced. If the rear of your car slips out due to poor traction and you end up in a ditch you will not be happy.

Actually, having two sets of chains on your car would be safer than one set on the drive wheels only. However it would be too much to expect people to put chains on all four wheels, and presumably they are driving very slowly and carefully while the chains are on.

I've been in Lake Tahoe this week and had my share of snow this season, driving the HiHy 4WD-i. I did see several Prius around, some with chains and some without. One week driving in heavy snow is enough, I don't know how people can live in this for months.

 

i will agree that after the first 3 days of snows when high temps were barely hitting the 20's, traction was not an issue. we get moving easily although there was still over a foot of snow.

but in the past week, its been in the mid 30's during the day which melts the top of the snow which freezes at night. so where you have just snow, its just crunchy on top with fluffy below, but in places where cars have been. its crushed down and up until thursday morning, the street in front of my house was packed solid 6"-10" of ice. there is a single track that you must drive in to have any chance at all of getting out of the development.

with weather expected to be in the 40's for the next week or so, its still doubtful the snow will be gone by then. iow, we can expect at least another week of pathetic driving conditions

 

I guess I thought the VSC cars had traction control that worked a bit better than the cars with only traction control. Not?

This morning our car got stuck in our street just a few hundred feet from our house. Regardless of how little or much throttle I applied, the car sometimes just sits there, which only a hint of movement forward or backward. By switching from drive to reverse, I could eventually get the car to start moving, and finally got it back in the garage. This was in wet, packed, and sometimes slushy, snow. Again, the car has studded snow tires, which are evidently just not enough.

 

when not moving only traction control is in play. VSC applies individual braking and power to wheels to prevent skidding.

with me, it rocks pretty easily, although i had to make sure it shifted. sometimes if i did not shift right, it would go to neutral. but got the hang of it in just a few seconds really. for the most part, rocking didnt work without a lot of digging first. there was simply too much snow. hard to rock if doing it 15 inches of ice and snow

 

I had the opportunity to test the minimum speed that ABS will work yesterday in my driveway. First, the conditions: The temperature was 32F with a light rain falling on ~1/2-3/4" of ice on an asphalt driveway. I never got past 5 mph and the anti-lock worked all the way until there was no more forward movement of the car. This came in real handy later on while in the Walmart parking lot.