Hi all. I am still doing my homework and prepping to buy a certified pre-owned Prius by this summer. I have a one car household and my 2000 Honda CRV is starting to get a little unreliable. After driving a Prius rental for 4 hours (to Ikea Pittsburgh and back), I loved it. I am a little concerned how it will fair in the snow as a recent Ohio transplant. I have already learned a ton from the forums and appreciate all the advice and assistance.
Cool! Good Luck on your future purchase. As a Michigander, I would recommend a good set of snow tires. I use Michelin X-Ice tires on steel rims.
I picked my 2007 Prius up in Minneapolis, MN in the middle of the winter. A strong blizzard hit on the way home to ND. There were cars in the ditch all over, I counted at least 13. I was truly worried! However I made it home with no instance, not even a little skidding. I've now had it 4 winters and only stuck once when I was run off the road. If ANY other car can drive, you can take your Prius !
I purchased a 2012 Prius V for the extra space for hauling stuff. I do have my 07 Prius touring pkg 3 for sale. It's in great shape with 7yr/100,000mile warranty.
I quoted this for the OP to make another point... The vehicle stability control in the Prius is one of the BEST Ive ever experienced. With the VSC, I cannot get the car to skid on ice or snow at all. It feels light years ahead of the GM product I had last, which the "stabilitrak" or whatever they called it, was noticeably not as efficient as Toyotas VSC. Another +1 for the Prius
This is great feedback. Thank you. Before we downsized to 1 car, I had a Subaru forester that I love, love, loved. It was great in snow (drove often around Lake Tahoe at the time). But I just cannot justify the lack of fuel efficiency. And to be honest the prius is roomier and comfier than the forester. Im not sure what years and models we will end up with, but we want to stay under 40k miles. And I am definitely planning on upgrading to aftermarket heated leather seats and getting rid of that terrible lift gate open alarm. Do the heated mirrors work well?
To be honest about the mirrors, they must work perfect because I have never had a problem with frosted mirrors and hadn't even thought about it until you asked now.
I agree, my mirrors usually never have anything on them to begin with, which is strange.... My last car had heated mirrors too but I found myself scraping them several times. Only once have I seen the heated mirrors in action when we had the last snowstorm here in Mi. Ice and snow had formed on my drivers side mirror and once I turned them on, water was pouring off the mirror really nicely. It defrosted the mirror QUICK. Like most other vehicles, the heated mirrors come on when you activate the rear defrost. I was impressed with the performance of them.
Wow. I am super excited now. We have really long and narrow driveways here in C town. There are mornings that I make the mister pull out the crv insead of me because I need my mirrors. He can do it with just the rear view one inside. Heated seats and mirrors await me. By the by, it was in the mid 60s today and will be snowing tonight. Crazy weather.
Same here!! I just went outside to move the trash cans so they dont blow away because not only was it pretty close to 60 degrees here today, but tonight its going to be in the 20's and we are getting an inch of snow WITH 40mph winds. Oy vay.....
Have pity on us in the UK with gen2 Prius we do not get heated mirrors on any version and with our winters they are essential, not even available as an add on from Toyota. I bought some heated mirror glasses on Ebay and fitted them myself. John (Britprius)
