On a 2009 Prius is uphill driving on snow/ice any worse than the Corolla? I have a fairly steep driveway and I can "walk" the Corolla up it.
Yes, it's worse. The Prius uses a fairly aggressive traction control system to avoid damaging the HSD. Traction control on the 2006 and newer models is much improved, but it still can cause some trouble. Make sure you have good winter tires, leave plenty of room when you pull into traffic, and don't expect miracles going up steep hills or through deep snow. It's not a Jeep. I have found my Prius to be one of the best winter driving cars that I have ever driven. With VSC and ABS it makes slippery streets easy to navigate. I have to remind myself that they are slippery. The two negatives are low ground clearance and the overly zealous traction control. Tom
Sierradiesel, Welcome to PriusChat. +1 on qbee42's comments... However, in that you have an '09 model, there is a possibility that the most recent version of the traction control has seen some minor improvements that haven't yet been explored and defined. Over the life of the Gen II Prius, Toyota has introduced refinements/ improvements without saying anything about them. A case in point were the subtle refinements to the traction control in 2006. Still, the traction control algorithms generate lots of complaints. Maybe, just maybe, Toyota has adjusted them again. It would take considerable testing to discover just what if anything has changed. And given you have no experience with the older versions, anything new and different will only come to light through the interplay of comments here. What with many members going gaga over the 2010, small changes in the '09 are likely to go unrecognized, especially in that there wil be relatively few '09 owners to report their experiences. So, I recommend that you play around with the traction control in a safe environment and report back. Who knows, maybe you'll be the one to discover/publicize some new '09 specific traction control wrinkle.
Thanks for the warm welcome. I was really concerned about it so I convinced my dealer to let me take one out and try it. The salesman had to go though. I got to my driveway and he just about lost his teeth-"you mean you drive up that?" It was all covered with a few inches of snow and some packed snow-ice from previous driving. I took it at a conservative slow speed. It went about half way up to a set of S curves and then it started to slip,cut the engine off and start to drift backwards a few inches. I kept my foot slightly on the throttle and it began to slowly walk itself up the hill! It made it up to the top about as well as the Corolla and several other front wheel drive cars with traction control. The corolla was there for a comparison just to make sure nothing had changed. The salesman was really shook up by this time and finally recovered when we made it up-he was impressed. The driveway is about 1000ft long with a S turn about half way up on the steepest part. The slope is around 20%.
