Disable Traction Control for winter situations?

I've used Maintenance mode through 4 winters and 20+ autocross events in 2 generations of Prius. Never harmed anything. Of course, this is where the driver comes into play by not overly abusing the drivetrain with TRAC disabled. Some spin is fine, extreme wheel spin in ANY vehicle can damage the drivetrain.

SPH-D710 ? 2

 

My 2nd gen with TRAC/VSC disabled.

SPH-D710 ? 2

 

New Prius C 2 owner here…in the Chicago area, where, yes, we get snow and a "real winter." Fascinating thread & videos here, thanks for posting.

We own a townhome sans a garage, I'm far from a car guy, and finances preclude us from getting snow tires for our Toyotas (my way better half has a '13 Corolla). Besides, yeah, it snows, but not exorbitant amounts every single year. In the one video with the weird laughing at spinning tires, would helping by "pushing" on the Prius one direction or the other be a good idea? Or even advisable?

I ask due to re-reading the manual not long ago & learning that it's verboten to "tow" a Prius the conventional way…which tells me the hybrid engine could be ruined if doing so. Is the same true of asking someone to "PUSH!" if the Prius C 2 is stuck in a snow bank or the like? Our "homeowners association" hires the WORST snow plow crew, and my son's missed school & I've missed work before when there's a heavy snow and we simply can't get out. Some neighbors have helped push my 1988 Olds Delta 88 out when I owned it, but now I'm curious to know if that's a bad idea with a Prius.

When I know a big snow is coming I back in to my deeded parking space & use a car cover the night before which helps. What I don't have much control over is getting out of my spot if the snow plow idiots we pay don't show or do their usual $#^*@ job of clearing our lot. Saying "save your money and buy snow tires" isn't a viable option for us, just wondering what NOT to do if stuck in a snowy/icy situation.

 

It's not so much the tires slipping that will damage the transaxle when driving in maintenance mode. It's that the electric motors are not limited when in maintenance mode. An electric motor has maximum torque at zero RPM and if the output is not limited the motors in Toyota's hybrids can produce enough torque to damage the gears. Also, in maintenance mode the engine will never shut off. This won't damage anything mechanically but it will do a number on your fuel economy. If you are easy on the throttle pedal you likely won't damage anything but it is still a bad idea to drive a hybrid in maintenance mode. And if you do damage anything you are an owner, Toyota will not warranty it. I've only seen one Prius transaxle go bad. It was caused by oil starvation due to a leaking axle seal. Most Prius owners don't know about maintenance mode. If more did and drove their car while in it I bet I would have more work during the winter...

 

A Prius towed with the drive wheels on the ground will not damage the engine. It will damage the inverter/converter and possibly the transaxle. When both wheels are turning in the same direction motor/generator 2 will be turning too. Since the motor/generators use fixed magnets MG2 will be generating electricity. Since the vehicle is not in Ready On the inverter is not on and will not process that electricity and the smoke will get let out of something. Pushing the vehicle, on the other hand, would be perfectly safe as long as the vehicle is Ready On.

 

I know this is old, but I just tried the method posted in the first post and it does turn of TC. The C does not display !car! But says Maintence Mode and displays the TC/slip light on. I will post a pic later

 

It will be winter before you know it… Plus, with all the family visits this summer, it’s likely someone will drive onto a grass yard, get down a slippery hill, and maybe need this to get out. You never know.

I understand the issues with overspinning wheels in the Prius. Electric motors could quickly get out of hand. I’ve been four-wheeling since 1988 and have a pretty good feel for the gas pedal and spinning tires. Crawling through a snowy intersection with the tires turning at a slow speed, and simply keeping them slowly spinning as traction is found and forward motion maintained is not hard to do. Once must simply have patience and stick to the plan. It doesn’t sound like that, in and of itself, nor simply being in the no-TC mode, would do any harm.

 

Just tried turning off traction control. 2005 with 232k.

The only thing I'm sorry about is that I didn't find out about this years ago.

OK, I beat it up for a bit - much too much fun on our muddy hills to not try. Painted the sides of the car with mud.

My take, as a long-time car guy and as an engineer:

- yes, I hear all the "DON'T DO THAT!!!" noise from various sorts. So it's at your own risk. BUT, I'll say this: You don't have to beat the snot out of it for it to be effective. My take (living in the hills of snowy/muddy Vermont): use it judiciously, and in moderation, like everything else. Headed up a snowy hill? Turn it on. Don't spin it to death, if you don't have to. Full electric motor torque going to chew up your gearbox? Maybe, but I would think you'd have to torture it for a while, and be really mean about it. I mean, you can launch this thing pretty good off dry tarmac, and I would think if the gearbox was susceptible to being torn up, you could probably get there through enough thrashing.
I can say that if you spin up one side under a lot of load and RPMs, you're doing your drivetrain no favors. In a conventional differential, you're spinning the hell out of your spider gears, and I have managed to blow up a rear end messing around in a truck that way a lot of years ago, and I expect that there are similar forces at play in this drivetrain, so don't abuse it - my take.
One more quick point - it really IS hazardous to lose forward momentum going up a slippery hill, especially if it forces you to a stop, and you can't go further forward (this has happened to me on more than one occasion) or you start sliding backwards. "That is not good." I think Toyota has engineered one helluva car - best piece of engineering I ever drove, I'll say that. But do you think they could have made so-called Traction Control into something that moderated wheel spin instead of disabling the drivetrain when it happens? Uh, yeah….
Turn off traction control to deal with situations where you need to (snow/ice/hill/mud/etc). Be nice about it. Turn it off when you don't need it anymore. My $0.02.

 

Has anyone tried installing the trac off switch from a '15 newer prius c? I'm assuming the harness and capability is there they just stifled us.

 

Speaking of the '15 C with its actual Trac Off button, I suppose this isn't the same as entering the Maintenance mode using the magical formula on previous models? I looked at the User Manual (imagine that!) and I saw no mention of warnings about using this button and the risk of destroying the car.

 

Can guarantee its a watered down version to allow folks to get out of sticky situations, as well as probably even do little burnouts but not actually full torque to the gearset. Looked under the switches on my 13 today, I see no plug right there but there are multiple empty plugs in the general vacinity so guessing one goes into the abs/yaw sensor aka into the vsc brain... so I would assume we'd need to buy the short harness and the switch. Going to see my parts guy tomorrow and call my Toyota corporate trainer and ask if he has a clue. Perhaps drive to region and see if he'd troubleshoot the scenario with me. Kinda awesome to work with toyota as your largest client.