Prius worst car in history in winter

Without blocking your grill, I would say your doing the best that you can.
I would try blocking 100% of your grill, then see if this improves your MPG over the life of 2 tanks of gas.

 

my worry about grill blocking is that without a temp gauge I'll have no idea if I'm overheating.

I better go read some grill blocking threads.

 

Lack of instrumentation is a concern/problem. However, in the dead of winter it is hard for the ICE to stay warm. Coolant temp can drop 11F just waiting for a traffic light. Even in Summer I haven't seen coolant temps higher than the high 190's F on the ScanGauge.

 

(Nothing to see here. Move along. I wish we could delete our own messages)

 

Winter blend gas does not help MPG no matter what you drive.

 

If your overheating.....you have a idiot light for that.

I have the bottom 100% blocked.......no problems yet......

 

Far from overheating. Radiator fan will come on. Even with it at full blast, and the temp get to dangerous level, the light would come on.

 

Hi Troyroy and Sporin,

I would not do 100 % grill blocking without a gauge, unless the temps were below 5 F (for the high), and I was only doing secondary road travel.

Sporin, give a 75 % lower grill block and NO blocking of the upper grill a try. This should be good for weather below 25 F. Run the temperature control at Auto and 65 F or greater. And avoid high speed with-the-wind driving (> 65 mph) for extended periods of time (more than 45 minutes). Leave the 25% unblocked portion of the lower grill in front of the Transmission.

 

No that would be the 1972 Ford Maverick.

 

I live in wisconsin, and I own a 2010 prius, has to say that the mpg suffers (drops down to 30-35) , a bit less when driving in the snow, but overall, I still think its a great car, i have no problem driving on the snow though

 

Do they sell studded tires in New Jersey? Those might help with your traction. My family puts studded tires on their Prius in October through April in Alaska. The gas mileage does drop a lot in the winter, but the traction is still good. If there is not snow on the ground all of the time then probably chains are the best option.

 

I had to laugh at this. I test drove a Prius yesterday while it was snowing and the roads were covered with slushy slippery snow. I was so confident that I took a turn too fast and the VSC kicked in and I completed the turn. I normally drive my RAV4 very slow because the tires (Coopers) just plain old suck on snow. If I had been driving the RAV when I took that turn, I'm sure that I would have ended up in the guardrail. Of course, if I had been driving the RAV, I would have been going a LOT slower. I knew I wanted a Prius but I also wanted to test drive a Scion XB and a Honda Fit. Based on my experience with driving on that slippery snow, I totally forgot about the other two cars and signed the paperwork when I got back to the dealership. I pick the car up on Tuesday after work and frankly, I can't wait to feel confident driving on snow again. Tires do make a lot of difference. I had Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires on a Tercel a few years and that car would go through just about anything. I didn't want to put snows on the RAV because I just didn't know when I was going to trade it in. It was a 96 and I finally faced the fact that I was going to have to have car payments again. Looking forward to picking up my Prius!

 

Fuzzy,

I've heard the exact same complaints about the TC in Gen2 + Gen3 - that's why I bring it up.

You do have a good point on disabling traction control in a Gen3. I don't know if the same process works on a Gen3 or not. If it doesn't, I would warn those with steep inclines to navigate in the Winter - this just isn't the car for you. Had I not found out how to disable TC in my '08, I would have traded it by now.

-Brad

 

This was taken on 12/27/2010 after that snow storm. My Prius did fine and made it to East Burnswick, NJ without an issue.

 

Now point that same auto uphill in that snow.

My Prius is fantastic in the snow as well. However, when the road points upward, my Prius simply gives up due to the traction control.

Does anyone know if one can disable TC in a Gen3 like with the Gen2?

-Brad

 

Like OP, I've noticed that using the heater really takes down the Prius mileage too.
I wonder whether that's true on all cars, but we just didn't notice because we didn't used to think about mileage in such micro terms before--at best most of us just looked at the overall mileage from a tank.

As many folks have said, I've known many worse winter cars than Gen III Prius.

But isn't it amazing how quickly folks suspected OP was an ex-Subaruite, and how many folks on Priuschat have or had Subarus?

BTW, our other car is a 2003 Subaru Forester, replacement for a 1991 Legacy. (It may, however, be a while before we get another--it's hard to get good Subaru service down here--and I wonder if that's true elsewhere outside the core Subaru areas.

 

Yes. The hardcore over at CleanMPG.com notice it.

 

Will you folks make up your mind already. Someone says the Prius is the worst winter car in history and I'm afraid to drive it. Then someone says it's not and I'm OK. It's both troubling and amusing at the same time. Nfl playoffs are on --- bye-bye.

 

The other question is whether one needs to.

We don't get a lot of snow here but when we've had it my Gen 3 has had no problem on hills when other vehicles were having some difficulty

My understanding is that traction control in the Gen 3 is considerably improved over the Gen 2.