I want to hear for the people that own the Camry Hybrid and live in an area that snows. Actually anyone can respond but if someone has actual experience with the Camry Hybrid in the snow that would be great.

I had an interesting discussion with an in-law about the Camry Hybrid and I was hoping someone with experience might be able to shed some light.

He was questioning how the Camry Hybrid would handle in snowy conditions. He felt that since the batteries are in located in the rear of the vehicle that would take weight off the drive tires (since the vehicle is front wheel drive). So with more weight transferred to the rear of the vehicle it might lose traction or not have good traction in snowy conditions.

Any experience or thoughts?

 

Unfortunately due to near record warm temps looks like we're getting a green Xmas, so no snow stories to share yet. But my gut reaction to someone offering this opinion is to remind them that this car is not simply a regular Camry that someone simply opened the trunk and dropped in a battery. Weight distribution would be factored into the design of the car. If you want to get into an arbitrary and meaningless discussion of where parts are, you could toss out comments like the gas tank is smaller, so less weight being carried at the far rear of the vehicle, more components under the hood like the electric motors and inverter that are not present on regular cars. Two separate cooling systems too, that coolant has got to weight a lot!

 

I don't live in the snow, but from an engineering stand point, the batteries would have to be located behind the rear axle for them to cause a weight transfer off of the front wheels. Since the batteries are located nearly directly over the rear axle, all it will do is add weight to the rear tires. The front tires would have the same weight on them as a conventional ICE. The real question is how much does the ICE/motor combo weigh compared to a similar 4 cylinder ICE only car. I would assume the TCH actually weighs more on the front axle than a standard ICE version.

 

The regular 2007 Camry 4 cyl has a weight distribution of:
F/R 58.9/41.1
Curb weight: 3260 lb
http://www.caranddriver.com/roadtest...ecs-page3.html

The 2007 Camry Hybrid has a weight distribution of:
F/R 57/43
Curb weight: 3617 lb
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...mry_specs.html

The small difference won't make any appreciable difference in driving in the snow. There is still plenty of weight over the front driving wheels.

 

Those are good figures TK. From a physics standpoint, if traction is your worry, according to those
#'s you're better off. 57% of 3616 is 2062 Ibs. 58.9% of 3260 is only (only, that's funny) 1920 Ibs. So, it looks like you get a whopping 140Ibs more over your drive wheels than in a regular 4 banger Camry. The car weighing more has other disadvantages and advantages too. Understeer will be likely be more of an issue. Braking distances will likely be much longer. My guess is you have ever driven in snow and are a competant driver, both the regular and hybrid Camry's would be as controllable in the snow as any other front drive sedan on the market, the TCH probably being easier. I don't know about you, but I spend more time in the snow wishing for more traciton than more braking since I allow lots of extra following distance in the snow. In that respect, the TCH should be better.

 

We got a good 10 inches of snow a couple weeks ago in Northern Illinois. I was extremely impressed with how well my Camry Hybrid handled the snow. The VDIM system kept the tires from spinning. I had fun flooring the gas pedal on snow covered roads and still had complete control, the traction control light was blinking quite a bit.

In my opinion it feels like a four wheel drive vehicle in the snow.

 

And it appears my assumption was correct.

Man am I good (breaks arm patting self on back!)

 

I thought mine did pretty well in the snow a few weeks ago too.

My only complaint is that the car seems to "hydroplane" easily when you hit the "ruts" of thick wet slush. My old vehicle did this too (a 4wd Trailblazer), but not quite as much as the Camry. I blame this on the all-season tires, though.

 

I had the same Michelin tires on my old Honda Accord and I wasn't impressed at all how they handle wet and snow/ice. They actually suck pretty bad and I got some cheapo Good Years to replace the front and they were much better. Anyhow, no experience with TCH on snow/ice yet either but I'm not easy about not being able to shut off traction control, since under some specific circumstances I'm afraid the car won't go anywhere without spinning the tires and the traction control won't allow that, might get interesting.

 

I think there is a way to turn it off, but it is a very convoluted sequence of parking brake presses and brake presses if I recall correctly. If you aren't aware of it, I can look for it (it might have been in the Lexus forums). I haven't confirmed it works on the Camry, though.