I travel on gravel roads now and then driving to trailheads. Is there anyway to temporarily increase ground clearance to prevent the Prius from bottoming out when the road gets rough?
Tuck, I'm not saying you are, but if one drives in the ruts left by others that'll get the bottom scraped. If you can put your tires on the high spots of the "W" formed by others tires it may help. I normally drive on gravel roads in search of the perfect photo and haven't had problems. But I understand it isn't a 4x4 and there are some places I just won't go. I've driven 60 miles out of my way because I wouldn't take a chance crossing something the 4x4 would have crossed in (literally) 5 seconds. Spin the Prius tires and it has no sympathy.
I once had a Subaru with a button on the dash that increased its clearance by a couple of inches. Great, until one of the air shocks died. Then it was just expensive. The Prius isn't a cross-country 4x4. You can go a lot of places if you're careful, but deep wilderness isn't one of them. Maybe get a HiHy?
lolz...the only thing you can really do is "pimp your ride" and get some hydraulics Then you can raise it as high as you damn want !!
Do what I do and rent a 4x4. I refuse to take a chance and ruin expensive parts. There was a thread 3-4 months back of a forum member who encountered hurricane debris on the road, either in Florida or Alabama, forget which. Thought he could clear the obstruction, loud noise instead. I think it was a street light standard laying on the road. Turns out he cracked the magnesium CVT case, and that was *very* expensive. I tried to do a search and it returned a database error.
