Worried about upcoming MN winter season....

I have a question that might be humorous to those of you actually living in the snow belt, so please bear with me.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area of generally-sunny California. I am, however, also a snowsports enthusiast and had made regular (200-mile each way) daytrips to Lake Tahoe with a 1st-generation Lexus IS300 (215-width performance all-seasons, RWD) until it became unaffordable. I would manage fine even while chasing Sierra Cement, with chains, experience, and the fact that they do try to make resort access easy, i.e. no steep driveways.

I just acquired a 2013 Prius, and it has the 195-width LRR Yokos.

Just how bad are the LRR tires in snow, relatively speaking?

 

to the OP: I have spent last winter in Fargo, ND with my 2010 Prius III and I did drive through a lot of snow and my car handled fine... As one of the posters pointed out, people with AWD do get over confident and hence are found in ditches. Once I drove in heavy snow from Alexandria to Fargo (about 100 Miles) and my car handled that as well fine. But if the snow gets deeper, then due to low clearance you may find some issue. Apart from that, my car did not have any problem.. Just be cautious and drive carefully

DtEW: In Jan i did put LRR Tires on my car, the Michelin Defenders and I will point out that it does get a bit slippery over the regular tires, but that could be due to my driving error also... I felt that regular tires handled better in snow than LRR but it could be human error also

 

It depends on the type of snow, so that's difficult to answer.

My Prius handled much better with those tires last winter than my Mom's 2004 Corolla with ordinary tires.

 

The Michelin X-Ice are rated LRR

Obviously not in the same league as an all-season or summer LRR, but just saying. There are overlaps: LRR is a broad definition.

 

Just re-did my lower grill foam. The four pieces needed are the same, including the "slots" for the grill vertical struts. Put it in starting with the upper one, that goes behind the license plate holder. My foam had a pull-off plastic strip to expose the tape that holds it "round" (after slipping it on the tube it's intended to insulate). Pull that off and stick the foam into a finished circle, then you can slot it and install. You pinch it slightly flat and press it between the horizontal grill pieces. Last year I left the upper grill open with no ill effects on heating or cooling. I drove Pearl S with the foam in even when the ambient temp was up in the 20C range (70F). City or highway. I wouldn't recommend leaving it in above that though.

The Prius in "cold" places (where it stays below say 10F for weeks) doesn't warm up very well. It takes 30 min of driving to reach operating coolant temp of 85C. Stop and go won't do it. Pearl S would reach about 60-65C and stay there. The heater works at that temp. but it took 15 to 20 min of driving to get there.
Put in the foam and she gets to 65C in 5-10 min depending on outside temp. By 15 min I see 80C on the scangauge. Best part is the car doesn't cool off very quickly in stop and go traffic, such as traffic lights and rush hour lineups.

 

I found the Nokian WR and WR-GII to be great all season tyres, with emphasis on winter. They are also very good in standing water. Nokian are coming out with the WR-GIII I'm told. They are all LRR tyres. I saw no difference in mileage between them and the stock "rim protectors" the GII came with. Pearl S still wears the OEM tyres, which actually worked fairly well last year. Most of the time I was driving the FJ Cruiser, due to the wicked snow and thick ice on the roads (with ice potholes - fun!). When not driving Pearl S she had a "Battery Tender" connected full time. I only used her for three weeks in January when the FJ was being repaired after being rear-ended by an 18 wheeler. But in that time the OEM tyres worked fine. There was ice but no deep snow.

With any vehicle in snow and ice, gentle on the throttle, slow into turns. Drive very conservatively and you'll usually be fine.

 

The Michelin X-Ice are a very impressive tire in the snow.

DBCassidy

 

i just purchased a set of Michelin X-Ice Xi3. They are are on 2011 prius wheels (and hubs). Will be putting them on in the next few weeks. Looking forward to my first set of 4 dedicated snow tires.

 

When we first got our Prius in September I blocked about half of the lower grille. As time went on and it got colder I gradually blocked more. Starting last night we are going to go at least a week with daytime highs in the single digits and overnight lows of -10 to -15 F. Thus, I blocked the rest of the lower grille and all of the top grille. We're now in the deep freeze portion of winter and I wouldn't expect the temp to get above freezing again until spring. I will carefully monitor temps on longer drives to see how warm things get with the grille fully blocked. I really doubt that it will be an issue though. My foam on the bottom grille is a mish-mash of pieces because I blocked it little by little. Thus, there are lots of small gaps where cold air can enter. The upper grille is blocked with two pieces of foam on each side of the Toyota symbol, but there are still gaps where cold air can enter.

I'll try to remember to take a pic to post later.

 

^ I wouldn't block more than 50% of the upper, due to the Inverter radiator being in that zone.

 

Once the outside temp gets below freezing I doubt very much you could overheat the inverter or anything else. It's a struggle to just get things to warm up.

An interesting thing I learned when researching "winter tyres". None of them are "mileage rated". Meaning, I guess, "they will wear out - quickly". I'm debating (with myself) running winter tyres all year long. Yes, they will wear out more quickly, however, they only work well when relatively new, and wearing them out in two years or so may be a "good thing" (tm) as you wouldn't be tempted to keep using them when they are not effective.

Note that a set of -nice- winter tyres will cost in the range of $800 for the Prius. ONE slide into anything will cost upwards of $2000 if it's a minor "fender bender"! Much more if done "at speed".
Drive carefully!
This morning it's -30C in Edmonton, with snow and ice on almost all the roads. Fun with winter!

 

It was -8°F (-22°C) this morning. I got great video footage of my commute too. 17 miles. 128 MPG. Gotta like that.

The engine fired up at 35 mph. That's far too cold to allow EV. Instead, it automatically switched to EV-BOOST. Once the engine warmed up, it shut back off.

It was a nice experience, but not something I want to repeat often. The walk from the Prius parking spot to work is a really cold one. Brrrr.

 

Michelin xIce are rated to 40,000 miles.

 

Check out this link. At those temperatures you won't have an issue. I monitored the underhood temps with my ScanGauge this morning while driving around and the warmest it got under the hood was about 30 degrees above ambient. Since the temp was below zero this is not an issue. In warmer weather it is. Considering that from now until late March we will see few, if any, days with temps above 32 F it won't be an issue.

 

Here's a pic


Driving around today with temps ranging from -10 this morning to -2F now the coolant stayed around 160F in the city and got up to 193F on the highway and stayed at 193F.

 

Are you able to monitor the inverter's coolant temperature? I don't think the inverter's performance is helped in any way by having higher temp's, like the engine.

 

Yes. See this thread.