TOYOTA rules!

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away
.
Simon And Garfunkel

That’s wierd that they don’t equip the car with a traction control button to deactivate it.
Oh well, I guess they can still look on the bright side, it gets good gas mileage. LoL.

Is this the only news you guys can come up with?

^ definately helpful to those who are considering the car with these type of weather conditions. Maybe not news to you.

thats stupid!! A car that won’t move??! F–k that **** and just rock ur car back and forth and get out. Simple as that.
I have STC/traction control on my Volvo and it never happens like the Prius!

S-60,
Not everyone in the USA can afford a Volvo…

Wait!, this must be a mistake. Toyota is not capable of mistakes. I am sure it is a behind the scenes conspiracy.
GM must somehow be at fault.

traction control is prettymuch useless unless you are driving aggresively, so whats the point in a prius. doesn’t it have a 26 second 1/4 mile time? even focuses have a deactivate traction control button.

Good game, Toyota. This is what happens when we become a market dominated by lazy drivers, Americans leading by far, who are not interested in learning how to actually control their vehicles, and want idiotic computer systems doing it for them.

Having the drivetrain disconnect during a slide is just as bad as wheel lock. Having the ability to exert small amounts of throttle is the ONLY way to effectively regain traction.

At risk of sounding like GM#1, these Prius piles are bombs waiting to go off. My doctor’s wife hit someone’s rear end at roughly 5 miles an hour, and the bumper didn’t do ****. All the mounts buckled and the entire drivetrain was dumped on the road.

Keep going Toyota, a little more work and maybe you’ll get a few hundred thousand people killed.

You really should not be driving a battery powered car in the snow. It really pulls down the battery/mileage with the cold weather.

Ha ha ha…. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

@ Pedro Miguel- 6:57pm……

I’m not saying everybody should get a Volvo cuz of the STC traction system. I’m just comparing my car to the Pruis. The traction control system.

I got stuck on a hill in Pittsburgh in my 300c and if there was no button to disable the T/C system than the car would not have moved. You need to be able, at times to spin the wheels to melt the ice and get going. ABS is completely useless on snow and ice also.

two words: “winter tires”

Oh jolly, the only FWD car that can’t get traction in the snow.

I posted this once before, but for all you the love Toyota so much here you go-

TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp. has recalled more than half a million pickup and sport utility vehicles in the United States. Toyota said in a statement it was recalling 533,000 Sequoia SUVs and Tundra pickup trucks in the United States. Including Canada and Germany, the total number of vehicles being recalled is 544,000, said a Toyota spokeswoman Friday. She said the defects had caused a total of 11 accidents and injured six people. “There is a possibility that the front suspension lower ball joint may experience excessive wear and looseness, causing increased steering effort, reduced vehicle self centering and noise in the front suspension,” Toyota said in a statement. The recall covers certain 2004 through early 2007 model Sequoias and 2004 through late 2006 model Tundra vehicles which were also produced in the United States. The potentially faulty parts will be replaced free of charge from mid-February. The company did not reveal the cost of the recall.

Looks like those recalls are increasing, LOL!

Shoulda gotta R32.

what? toyota sucks? GO R32 son!

Snow?

I thought those space-pods where bought mainly in SoCal and Phoenix and driven by ego-greenies…

I guess some of those Vermont hippies gave up their Subarus.

“would probably just start spinning in place and eventually spin out of control. In my opinion, it’s better to have the vehicle stop then to have the wheels spinning and out of control.”
What? I hope this guy isn’t an engineer…
Here comes a giant cement truck – oh no! My tires slipped….thankfully my car stopped! Squish…

ahh yes, a story that will instiage a barrage of naive anti prius comments. morons morons morons

In reality problems like this occur to many, many cars, but LLN surely doesn’t report on all of these cases. Be realistic, if you think that Toyota is somehow decreasing in quality or that this is going to make an inch of difference, you’re fooling yourseleves

Also: my father owns a Prius, and there’s never been an issue. Ever. I know, not all cars are the same, but this story seems like b.s. really

First off, if you live in an area that gets snowy during the winter months you should be smart enough to buy a set of winter tires (4 tires, not just the 2 for the driving wheels), invest in a winter beater, or buy a new AWD / 4WD vehicle. Hell, I am from New England and when it snows, it snows alot, thank goodness for my 4×4 GMC Jimmy winter beater, cuz I know my Buick LeSabre is not meant for driving through snowy conditions. A Prius is simply not built for driving in slippery or snowy conditions. A modern consumer should know what their product is good for (and capable of dooing) when purchasing.

There’s few things worse than a car that knows better than its owner, even if the conditions present a danger.

Interesting………I would think it would be the crappy ass small tires that would be rthe problem, but then again I wouldn’t know as I woudn’t own a Toyota in general, and a Prius in particular…….

Why doesn’t the guy use his smugness to push him along in the snow?

Maybe when he is stuck there with his environmentally responsible piece of crap his hippy ass could smoke a joint.

Only in a time of overly sensitive politically correct assholeness could these kinda cars be sold. Sorry if anyones feeling are hurt…poor babies

dpz4shizzy: Good point, this could be applicable to any FWD or RWD car that just can’t handle the snow. I have relatives that live in Denver and Vail Colorado, they live 4 days a week in Denver and the remaining 3 in Vail. In the winter it snows like none other up in the mountains, they have an Audi TT(fwd, before it came out w/ quattro) and a BMW 325xi, they never use the TT to drive up to Vail in the winter because it can’t handle it, they always have to take the Bimmer. Like you said, some cars aren’t meant for heavy snow, so to me it’s hardly the Prius’ fault, and more the owners for purchasing a car that might not be suitable for the conditions they will be driving in.

If I lived in a high-snow area, I wouldn’t buy a Prius, no. But that doesn’t give Toyota license to sabotage them with a death-trap TCS.

You might be surprised to hear Lamb, but RAIN happens everywhere.

toyota sucks!!

angelo –”two words: “winter tires”

absofarkinlutely

“In my opinion, it’s better to have the vehicle stop then to have the wheels spinning and out of control.”

what a douche, this Bill Kwon is, “we’ll leave you just standed in a snow storm then..”

“Besides, we designed this car for smug rich southern California douchebags that never see the snow”

I don’t know, all FWD cars that I see with or without traction control do fine, a car with rear wheel drive would do better with winter tires. Anyone that know how to drive in snow doesn’t need any special tire with FWD, just a drive that knows HOW to drive, and a car that actually moves. And I put alot of sarcazm in that last line.

Priceless…I hate these things and their owners…serves them right to buy into the hype of hyprids, then drive them 40mph on the freeway. 0mph is only fitting for them, isn’t it? They obviously don’t like to drive anyway…

how does he know that without the traction control the car will spin off. he is insulting our driving skills!!!!

I’m sorry, but this whole article just makes me laugh!!! I live where it snows and most FWD cars do great, there is no replacement for 4WD or AWD but FWD is the next best thing.

if you live in the snow and need to also have a hybrid wouldnt the escape hybrid 4×4 be an option? i mean the drivetrain is toyota based in the first place, wouldnt that be a good compromise?

Good point CTS Driver, also the Highlander Hybrid, Lexus RX400h hybrid.

PrimeGTP: Like i said my father owns a Prius, and oh guess what, you’re right, we have rain everywhere too, and there’s never been an issue! not once. that’s what i thought.

HAHAHA!

I can speak, firsthand, about how absolutely horrible the Prius’s TCS is. A family member had one, which I often borrowed when my cars were in the shop, or when I just didn’t feel like driving around on rock-hard suspension and dealing with a race clutch…

Absolutely awful. If I went hammer-down, trying to pull onto a street from a driveway, for example, the car would just cut power. There is, however, a legitimate reason, although it’s just a different kind of stupidity on Toyota’s part. Evidently, wheelspin can over-rev the electric motor, which can cause damage.

I probably hold the honor of the only person in history to have done a timed lap in a Prius (I won’t say where!), and discovered that it actually isn’t a terrible chassis, the CoG is very low (thanks to the batteries), and it’s reasonably responsive. I lapped only 20% slower than I do in the WRX, but it took a lot of, well, confusing the car’s systems. See, the trick is to work faster than the TCS’s brain can.

What you have to do is out-think the car. It’s concerned with front-wheel traction. So, the trick is to force the car to oversteer without the car figuring it out. A combination of weight-transfer and perfect braking, to lock the rear wheels, can accomplish this, and you’re sideways by the time TCS kicks in. Here’s where it gets brilliant… The drivetrain disconnects, which causes freer control of the slide, and sometimes it even applies braking. This braking is actually pretty intelligent, and is good at reigning the car back into a straight line.

I’ll admit that I had a bit too much fun with that car once I figured this out. I used to be a very “active” canyon driver, and had a lot of drivers ask me for instruction. Imagine the surprise when I showed up with the Prius! However, the car was big and slow, which made it great as a “lead” car for teaching lines, and one incident does stand out in my mind, where the owner of a modified Miata was very surprised to see a Prius appear behind him, sideways! Wasn’t so surprised when he realized that he knew the driver… Also, an incident where I was bored, and chased down a 3rd-gen Eclipse (not exactly the paragon of performance cars itself, of course), and managed to get him to let me pass!

Such days of hooliganism are long-over, of course.

I need my boots…

traction control on a FWD hybrid? What’s the point?

im with lamborghini, i have a prius and have been through many rainstorms here in fla without any problems whatsoever. i can understand how these problems in the snow and ice could happen, but for crying out loud, get a vehicle FOR those conditions. sheesh, move on already.

Funny, my 1995 Mazda Protege doesn’t have any traction control at all, and I do okay with lake-effect snow . . .

The only traction control I need is my right foot. The wheels are going to spin in snow, it happens, just upshift.

Something tells me the traction control is working just fine, as they said. Idiots like Lambo Z tend to mash the gas (or battery pedal in this case) to the floor when they get stuck in the snow. The traction control probably prevents wing nuts from burning out the motors or tranny.

I just spent a weekend in Syracuse, and I didn’t have one problem in the snow behind the wheel of my gas powered SUV. Hmph!

Anyone who drives an abortion as bad as the prius deserves to get stuck in the snow and either slowly freeze to death or get hit by an oil truck.

How outrageous. Why do we need permanent traction control? We don’t. I live in Michigan and drive an ‘06 Cobalt SS Supercharged with a 5 Speed Manual Transmission, absolutely no traction control, and performance (note: summer) tires. I haven’t had one problem driving around this winter (this is my first manual transmission car and the first winter I’ve had it). Previous to the Cobalt, I owned a ‘98 Camaro 3.8 with SGS (Second Gear Start) and hardly ever needed the SGS in the winter. I don’t see why people whine about needing Traction Control…

Now Lambo finally gets a taste of whats its like to be a GM fan on this site, lol. I have TCS on my Monte SS and have yet to get completely shut down, although it lets me spin the tires a little bit if I want, I also have the ability to turn it off. I have a 98 Camaro, 91 S10, 93 Blazer 4×4, 95 Monte Z34, 86 Monte Carlo SS and the list goes on, and I have never been stuck in the snow in the 23 years I lived in Michigan. If the Prius is going to tear its self apart from spinning the tires they should be forced to inform a customer that the vehicle isn’t suited for winter driving, that way their not left with pissed off customers. Toyota is slipping in quality, they just kiss ass like none other to make up for it!

Toyota has agreed to settle with thousands of owners of its cars who sued the company because they claimed that oil-sludge build-up ruined their car’s engines even though they followed maintenance guidelines. The problem, according to Toyota’s critics, was that certain oil passages were too small in some Toyota and Lexus engines, allowing them to become easily clogged by even tiny amounts of sediment. As a result, major components such as piston rings, crankshafts and connecting rods tend to fail, causing enough damage to require engine replacement. Although Toyota claims that the sludge didn’t result from any engine-design problem, under a pending agreement between Toyota Motor Sales and motorists who are part of a class-action lawsuit, the automaker will compensate owners of sludge-damaged cars for engine-repair costs and related expenses from towing and storage charges to rental cars, attorney fees and “inconvenience, annoyance, anxiety and aggravation”.

Hahaha…told ya it would come back and bite you in the ass! Toy Ota is a piece of **** car maker, period.

All of you ridiculing Toyota and the Prius, you know, being a pioneer and a leader in technological developments has never been easy. And if the Prius was such a bad idea, then why have they made a huge amount of money from it, saved tens of thousands of tons of noxious chemicals from polluting our atmosphere, and influenced the likes of GM, Ford, and everyone in between to get into the hybrid game? Sorry that GM doesn’t have the initiative/balls/caring to start making changes first, they’re too stupid/slow to do that on their own, they have to wait until someone innovative like Toyota does it first to finally realize they can make some money off of it, and even then that’s not the right reason for doing this, the right reason is to be ecologically friendly, but once again GM is too ignorant to give a damn about that.

The Prius saves you at the pump and does help the environment, but the helps destroy the environment in other ways.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770

BTW GM was making hybrids back in the 1930’s, it was in trains, GM has done its share of innovating over the years. It’s just easier for a company that already has a name to get lazy, their working to correct it, but it takes time and money, Toyota has more of both. Why do you guys hold such a grudge towards things? Bunch of whiny ass babies. IMO

Hey Lambo, show me a Toyota plant that is envirnmentally friendly. I know that Ford has a couple and so does GM. They use solar power, wind power, plants in the factories for CArbons, etc. And I don’t think Toyota or Honda come close to contributing the millions of dollars Ford and GM invest in annually.

I hope GM produces a Volt based hybrid soon, so they can put this piece of **** econobox prius out of its misery.

Hey mujician, show me a GM hybrid that actually works

What do you expect from someone who supports the hell out of the Prius yet goes by a login inspired by a vehicle with just about the worst gas millage out there? His poor brain is just trying to deal with the paradox.

^^Huh?

I’m with bb_454. GM’s had more innovations than any other manufacturer out there in the industry, but Toyota comes out with a “60 MPG” car, which doesn’t hold up to the economy they say it will, and it’s suddenly the greatest thing since GM hit a roadblock in the 70s.

well i guess gm is ahead of the europeans in the hybrid race, thats why bmw is interested on gm`s hybrid tech.

Lamborghini…the Prius is for NERDS…..INCLUDING YOUR DAD!

Keep on crying Lambo, I’m going to get you a ba-ba, and then of course a bar of soap. For a little boy, your mouth is filthy.

Domestic dumb fuaks wow. No brains I’m assuming. Well flame all you want, either for racism or other discriminative issues you guys have. I love my imports. I don’t care if either way the wheels are going to spin, wtf is the point of spinning the tires? Also at least its not going to be dead on the side of the road at 0 blow like domestic cars.

LamborghiniZ….I actually have a Mercedes in the garage and a Boxster. And since we are comparing Dads…lol…he has a Lexus RX and Acura RL…either way, I would much rather have either combination then your NERD of Dads Prius and BMW 3-series. You and your Dads income together don’t match mine….SHUT IT!