As far as I can recall, the manual for every car I have owned suggested the the VSC be turned off when the donut spare was mounted. I can find no mention of this in my Prius manual nor can I find a way to turn the VSC off. Is turning it off suggested for the Prius and, if so, how do I do it? How about the Traction Control? Same questions. The car is a 2009 Pkg 2 and has both Traction Conrol and VSC according to the window sticker that was on it when I bought it. Thank you very much.
You can't turn off traction control or VSC. To be completely honest, traction control can be disabled from a special maintenance screen, but the car is not supposed to be driven in that mode. Tom
The Prius VSC and Traction Control systems have no problem running with the spare mounted. There is no reason to turn them off. As stated above, you can't just "turn them off". If you did use the maintenance menu to turn them off there is a good chance you could destroy the transmission (HSD) by over-spinning it.
Your first sentence is what I wanted to hear. I can see no reason to think about turning them off. Thank you very much.
I beg to differ. My '09 Prius touring (pkg 3?) is awaiting replacement tires (I accidentally punctured one last week while parking; the new tires have to be ordered), so I'm driving with the limited-use spare on the front right wheel. The traction control (the light with the skidding car) kicks in almost every time I drive, even while driving straight. The result is a car that loses power and slows down no matter what I do to the accelerator. I thought the computer would "recognize" the situation somehow, but so far (about 4 trips) it hasn't, and I would love to temporarily disable this "feature" for a few days. But I agree, I don't want to mess with that diagnostic screen. Any ideas? I have a few more days of this before my new tires come in.
The best suggestion I have is to put the temporary tire on the rear. That way the traction control system won't be an issue.
If you care to read the manual, all front wheel drive cars have you put the mini-spare on the rear rather than the front. The reason for this is the smaller diameter tire will ruin the transaxle which costs a hell of allot more than a tire.
My idea is that you should verify that the tire pressure in the spare is 60 psi. If that is good, then my second idea is for you to move the spare tire to a rear axle position.
I do "care to read the manual". The manual says absolutely nothing about which axle the tire should go on. Not arguing with you on the wisdom of that...just saying that this particular detail isn't in the manual for the '09 Prius.
2009 Owners Manual Page 442 If you get a flat frt tire on an icy or snowy road, put the temp on the rear & replace the flat frt with the tire rmvd from the rear. Not exactly 'absolutely nothing' . It tells you of possible traction problems in slippery conditions Page 444 mentions which systems may not operate correctly when using the temp tire: ABS, EBD, & VSC. The 2010 manual also mentions TRAC. The smaller diameter temp is rotating faster than the other tire & has less traction. This is triggering the TRAC warning. Putting the temp on the rear should solve your problem. Drive carefully with that temp.
