Genii Traction Control On Snow/ice

[cootuk]

I guess I might as well start a new thread seeing as we've now got snow.

2006 GenII (so have VSC and the allegedly changed traction control software?)

We live on a small hill on a main linking road that is regularly gritted/salted by the council as emergency services use it a lot.

Today the gritters were parked up at the bottom as traffic was so slow they couldn't grit effectively.

Up the hill, with standard 16" Turenzas, the traction control was blinking for about 100ft on the start of the climb from a miniroundabout - the wheels never stopped turning but the speed was only about 3-5mph.

Quite a few front wheel drivecars doing the usual 'spin your wheels as fast as you can' trick so it's not just a Prius issue - though low rolling resistance tyres obviously don't help.

As long as you can get in the mindset that revving the engine doesn't do anything, and to ease off and let the computers do their thing, then you make slow progress - though when the Turenza need replacing I think I'll go for a more wintery type of tyre.

[Dave R.]

Well.... just been out in 6inches of snow in the GenIII T-Spirit.... in general everything was well behaved. I did try some silly maneuvers in an empty car park, but stability control and traction control kicked and did the business, keeping everything under control.

I eventually came unstuck when trying to reverse into our drive.... a slight uphill gradient (nothing too steep) & it just would not hack it. I think the build up of snow behind the tyres didn't help. Solution was to dig the snow out and stuff a pair of old car mats behind the front wheels.... once the car was moving everything was fine.

My current view is that, provided you drive sensibly, the car will be well behaved. Knowing how the traction control works helps (i.e. no hope of spinning the wheels.... not that such a technique ever gets you anywhere!)

[phil4]

Well.... just been out in 6inches of snow in the GenIII T-Spirit.... in general everything was well behaved. I did try some silly maneuvers in an empty car park, but stability control and traction control kicked and did the business, keeping everything under control

As above, (same car also), however silly maneuvers repeatedly resulted in massive understeer. Unsuprising as you can't beat physics, but demonstrating that car still able to crash if you go into a bend too fast (just so happens 12mph was too fast in this case).

[timberwolf]

As long as you can get in the mindset that revving the engine doesn't do anything, and to ease off and let the computers do their thing, then you make slow progress - though when the Turenza need replacing I think I'll go for a more wintery type of tyre.

When has revving your engine and spinning the wheels ever been the correct way to drive on snow or ice?

It sounds like you and your Gen 2 Prius did an excellent job of tackling that hill.