Rx400h In The Snow

[DeanB]

A report from Lake Tahoe, CA.

I took my brand new 400h up to Tahoe this weekend. We had a very cold storm dumping all week and weekend, so this ended up being a good test. If anyone has specific questions, please post, I'm going to keep this summary brief and simple:

-New 400h/AWD/All options except RSES - approx 500 miles

-We had four people in the car, the drive up is 250 miles to our place, as is the drive down. I went from sea level to just above 7000' to the resort. I put on about 50 miles while in Lake Tahoe as well.

-On the way up I drove no faster than 80 mph, a good chunk of the drive was however slow due to heavy traffic. All said, the drive up was 6.5 hours of drive time (drive down 5 hours).

-Once on firm snow just beyond 2500' (it was a cold storm), the 400h rarely engaged the rear tires, unless I pressed it to slip by over accelerating. Once the car went into an induced slip, the rear wheels engaged and righted itself quite amazingly. I have done this test on other cars, with less success. I performed a 'slip' test three times, each time resulting is a very good positive grip.

-On local streets covered with snow (the depth was 2" to 6") I tried to induce several slips by slamming on brakes or accelerating heavily around a corner. Each time a slip occured for a split second, then the system took over and righted the car to do whatever I was planning on having it do. Again, better than a typical SUV, on par or better than an AWD sedan like an Audi Quatro (which has much less clearance).

-Starting and warming in the AM was excellent, no problems.

-Backing up in 1' of snow, pushing through a berm of snow at the same time (from the city plow) only required pusing the pedal about half way (this is normally a tough task due to the low traction and heavy accumulation over night). It did not blast through like my old Expedition, but it did humm away and do the same job nonetheless.

Net net, for a small SUV, that utilizes a hybrid system, incredible performance. I didn't mention that the 6.5 hours up to go 250 miles included tons of slow-and-go traffic. Rolling up-hill, in the mountains, running only on electric at times was beautiful. I counted four twenty minute stretches where the ICE was off going up-hill, in traffic, not creating CO2. (the cycle was, ICE charges battery to 3/4 full, then electric motors burns it down for 20 mins until 1 bar left, then ICE starts up to charge...)

Going downhill was even better, due to traffc again, I counted two 20 mintue periods, and one FULL HOUR period where the ICE was off. Again, this is 100% downhill, utilizing the 'B' gear or just brakes. (The drive down took 5 hours).

My MPG for this trip was 24.8. This was NOT conservative driving (I sped to 80 MPH when I could), and it was partially in cold weather (12-28 degrees F).

I was BTW very happy with the Zaino and Clear Bra (xPel/3M product) that I applied to protect the 400h during this drive. I have many more 'results' if you have questions. I hope this clears up any doubts about using this car in severe weather. It triumphed, and even saved some serious CO2 and some gas at that.

My previous Tahoe Mobile was a Ford Expedition. I averaged 10-13 MPG, and never knew what feeling the road in snow was really like. While the Expedition could bull through anything, it did so at a huge expense to the environment, and I will never go back to such a waste.

Regards.

P.S. In the case that the weather got *really* bad, I purchases a pair of chains for the 400h. I keep chains with all of my trucks, regardless of AWD capability for the sake of having that extra traction on-hand. The "Konig Magic" or "Konig Super Magic" chains, made by an Italian compay are incredible, and fit the 18" wheels quite nice a safely. You can only put on the front wheels (per the manual). I didn't use this trip, and probably will never HAVE to use, but if you want a pair yourself, contact Kevin: kevin@chainquest.com.

[RX400h]

Excellent writeup - thanks a bunch. A coworker just joined the ranks of RX400h owners and there are many here in San Diego. I was tempted to go to Mt Laguna this weekend just to "try her out" but had to back down due to prior commitments. I do have 11 Winter seasons of snow-driving experience when I lived in Connecticut, so I'm no stranger to driving on the white stuff.

[wwest]

A report from Lake Tahoe, CA.

I took my brand new 400h up to Tahoe this weekend. We had a very cold storm dumping all week and weekend, so this ended up being a good test. If anyone has specific questions, please post, I'm going to keep this summary brief and simple:

-New 400h/AWD/All options except RSES - approx 500 miles

-We had four people in the car, the drive up is 250 miles to our place, as is the drive down. I went from sea level to just above 7000' to the resort. I put on about 50 miles while in Lake Tahoe as well.

-On the way up I drove no faster than 80 mph, a good chunk of the drive was however slow due to heavy traffic. All said, the drive up was 6.5 hours of drive time (drive down 5 hours).

-Once on firm snow just beyond 2500' (it was a cold storm), the 400h rarely engaged the rear tires, unless I pressed it to slip by over accelerating. Once the car went into an induced slip, the rear wheels engaged and righted itself quite amazingly. I have done this test on other cars, with less success. I performed a 'slip' test three times, each time resulting is a very good positive grip.

-On local streets covered with snow (the depth was 2" to 6") I tried to induce several slips by slamming on brakes or accelerating heavily around a corner. Each time a slip occured for a split second, then the system took over and righted the car to do whatever I was planning on having it do. Again, better than a typical SUV, on par or better than an AWD sedan like an Audi Quatro (which has much less clearance).

-Starting and warming in the AM was excellent, no problems.

-Backing up in 1' of snow, pushing through a berm of snow at the same time (from the city plow) only required pusing the pedal about half way (this is normally a tough task due to the low traction and heavy accumulation over night). It did not blast through like my old Expedition, but it did humm away and do the same job nonetheless.

Net net, for a small SUV, that utilizes a hybrid system, incredible performance. I didn't mention that the 6.5 hours up to go 250 miles included tons of slow-and-go traffic. Rolling up-hill, in the mountains, running only on electric at times was beautiful. I counted four twenty minute stretches where the ICE was off going up-hill, in traffic, not creating CO2. (the cycle was, ICE charges battery to 3/4 full, then electric motors burns it down for 20 mins until 1 bar left, then ICE starts up to charge...)

Going downhill was even better, due to traffc again, I counted two 20 mintue periods, and one FULL HOUR period where the ICE was off. Again, this is 100% downhill, utilizing the 'B' gear or just brakes. (The drive down took 5 hours).

My MPG for this trip was 24.8. This was NOT conservative driving (I sped to 80 MPH when I could), and it was partially in cold weather (12-28 degrees F).

I was BTW very happy with the Zaino and Clear Bra (xPel/3M product) that I applied to protect the 400h during this drive. I have many more 'results' if you have questions. I hope this clears up any doubts about using this car in severe weather. It triumphed, and even saved some serious CO2 and some gas at that.

My previous Tahoe Mobile was a Ford Expedition. I averaged 10-13 MPG, and never knew what feeling the road in snow was really like. While the Expedition could bull through anything, it did so at a huge expense to the environment, and I will never go back to such a waste.

Regards.

P.S. In the case that the weather got *really* bad, I purchases a pair of chains for the 400h. I keep chains with all of my trucks, regardless of AWD capability for the sake of having that extra traction on-hand. The "Konig Magic" or "Konig Super Magic" chains, made by an Italian compay are incredible, and fit the 18" wheels quite nice a safely. You can only put on the front wheels (per the manual). I didn't use this trip, and probably will never HAVE to use, but if you want a pair yourself, contact Kevin: kevin@chainquest.com.

Tire chains only on the front of any vehicle can quickly turn an already nerve-wracking drive into an extremely HAZARDOUS one. Just as your Lexus owners manual warns, extraordinary traction on the front versus the rear can, and often does, lead to loss of directional control, especially on a slippery downhill run if you need to suddenly slow or brake quickly.

I added 1.5" wheel spacers all around on my 2001 AWD Rx300 so that I could use tire chains safely, on the rear first and then also the front if the need arises. Both sets went with me this past weekend from Seattle to Dayville OR. Luckily the only adverse roadbed conditions we encountered was a heavy FRESH snowfall, maybe 6 to 8 inches, on the pass just south of Fossil.

[gkm]

This was my second drive from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin in three months, with heavy snow coming around lake Erie in both instances. The car never slipped once, was engaged on the snowy surface of the interstate, kept steady. Of all the cars I have had, this is the one with the best snow performance. Incidentally, I had a Prius 05 before this one, and I had to trade it in for the 400h because of the poor performance on snow and the well reported traction control (the car goes dead..) problems with the Prius.

[bikeandsail]

I have over 24,000 miles on my Rx400h and now have a full winter of use including a lot in the "snow belt" of northeast Ohio. I do have 4 mounted snow tires that I installed last fall. I always put snow tires all the way around on all my vehicles.

This car is simply amazing in the snow. In very slick road conditions you can floor the accelerator and the engine will only speed up at the rate all 4 wheels can provide traction. From a standing start on ice the car engine barly speeds up untill the car gets some traction. During these times it is feeding power to all 4 wheels.

The stabilty control also reacts quicker to rear wheel slides and I do amazing.

I took the car to a Vermont ski resort, Mount Snow, a few weeks ago and it snowed all weekend, the roads were so bad, snow over ice, many vehicles including 4WD SUV's could not even control their decent on downhills let along uphills. Again the car was amazing if you didn't watch the "skid" alarm on the dash it was easy to deceive yourself into thinking it was not very slick.

This car is far and away the best winter traction/control vehicle I have ever driven.

Ron