BTW, for the other guy who gets crazy with people who share honestly he needs to realize how this discredits him. I read his response and it appears he didn't even read super10s posts carefully enough. Super10s already stated how his Highlander has snow tires. Colorado is not Beverly Hills either, it has more challenging high-altitude mountainous roads than another state in the lower 48. Maybe he knows what he's taking about?[/quote]


You are right, I did miss the fact that he has winter tires in his post on the previous thread.

But this doesn't change the fact that the HiHy's system, functioning normally, gives as much power to each wheel as it can handle without uncontrolled wheel spinning. As soon as power exceeds traction in each wheel, independently, power is reduced to that wheel. That's the "intelligent" part. If it cannot make progress with the traction available, it shuts down - not for lacking adequate power to a wheel with more traction due to some sort of archaic differential design, which is his assumption.

If super10s is having uncontrolled wheelspin and scary operation on slick surfaces, then his system is not operating properly, as I said before. I refer you to comment #13 in the link I referenced in my previous post that demonstrates normal operation - the poster couldn't make his vehicle slide or spin out on snow/ice, whereas his Honda Passport would do just that.

All I can say is that if you are considering a HiHy, you should read the links and see that many more posters are satisfied with deeper snow performance than those not, and have found techniques that help.
And a lot of places have a lot more snow than the Denver area.

The reason the Highlander shuts down is to avoid overheating of the air-cooled rear motor with trying to "grind it out" - more likely with sand in summer than snow. Is it disconcerting? Of course, and deep snow with limited ground clearance is not a good combination regardless of your 4WD configuration.

Pete