Hi all. I have a friend who is seriously considering a Prius for her job, but she's apprehensive about how it will survive regular but short trips on dirt/gravel roads. A few times per week she has to drive a few miles on them. Is there any reason for her to be worried about this?
No more than with any other car. If you spend a lot of time on dusty roads, there is an accelerated service schedule for filter changes and related items. Other than that, there's not much to worry about. Tom
The clearance may be a problem if the roads have deep ruts, a high crowns, or are generally in poor condition.
If the dirt becomes mud then any car will have trouble. Does she have a 4 wheel drive right now? Or is mud not a particular problem? I would definitely recommend she get mud guards to protect against the rocks and dirt globs.
To avoid some traffic problems in the Cajon pass in SoCal I have taken the fire road. The raod is all dirt and poorly maintained. You just have to go slow. The only problem is steep hills with loose dirt. The VSC will stop the car. But the road has to be STEEP, about 15 degrees, which is really steep. And it has to have loose dirt on it, not just be made of dirt. So flat dirt roads with little rolling hills should be no problem.
STEEP Dirt/Gravel Roads Echoing Devil's Advocate's comment re steep dirt/gravel roads, the same applies to steep snowy or icy roads -- the Traction Control (not the Vehicular Stability Control) may automatically cut off power to the wheels. Unlike other cars, you can't manually turn the Prius' Traction Control on/off. If you want to read more about the problem, there are several threads here on PriusChat about it, like this recent one discussing whether there were differences in the 04-05 Traction Control from later models: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/40883-does-ecu-upgrade-fix-04-05-traction-control.html
Well, until they started a logging operation north of my hobby farm, I used to always take my Prius, the 4.5 km gravel sideroad is winding but no real steep sections With the logging traffic and the deep ruts, forget about it. The FJ handles it ok, but it was built for that sort of driving. If I drive it very gently I can achieve about 47% of the fuel economy of my Prius. Obviously, the FJ is my "toy" to rarely use. The Prius is the daily driver and will remain so I have commented in the past on the hyper-sensitive Trac behavior of my '04 Prius. I test drove an '08 Prius around a month ago and it was entirely different, for the better Given the price of fuel, the Prius is a no-brainer
The only Prii I've driven have been my '08 and a friend's '07, so cannot comment on earlier iterations of the Prius regarding the effects of snow, ice, or loose dirt/gravel surfaces on hilly roads. I do know that the '08 with the stock Integrity tires can lose traction on a steep upslope which is icy. And I also got stuck once and needed to be pushed out of a diagonal parking spot on a street where the slope consisted of the downward crown of the road itself, and I had parked in 4" of fresh but wet snow. Putting the car in either reverse or drive rendered nothing, and I also discovered that it was impossible to 'rock' back and forth to try to obtain traction. But getting back to the basic question, I see no reason why the Prius would be a problem on a dirt or gravel road, assuming it is in reasonable condition and minimally maintained.
