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I was just reading an atricle in the new Car And Driver about a Prius at Bonneville. This 130 mph prius had major modifications and one worry was that the traction-control would kick in and kill any acceleration. The article says that "by stomping the brake and the gas in a precise sequence, he could tell the computer to disable the traction-control system". It is not known wether the trick worked. The car had problems getting out of neutral.
Anyways, in short, the traction-control on the Prius is horrible. The system TOTALLY cuts power to the wheels whenever ANY wheel-spin is detected. Ive read on this site and others that the traction control is excellent and wheel-spin is not ever necessary and just being "macho". Anyone who thinks this is very confused. There are many times when wheelspin is not only necessary but mandatory. Snow, gravel, mud, sand and wet grass are some of the driving conditions where wheel-spin may be the only way for forward or rearward progress. For those of you that say "push" or "carry a shovel", do you suggest that to my 8 month pregnant wife when the Prius stops dead on a minor grassy hill leading to our back door. I mean the car stopped dead. A little wheel-spin would have solved the problem, besides, the grass will grow back.
Enough of my rant.
I need to find a way to disable this cursed annoyance. Both the misses and I are very capable drivers and in most situations are probably smarter than the car. Please help us control this control because winter is coming and our rural roads can go unplowed for days.
Thanks

Mine has a TC switch that turns it on and off. like the Holden senator (only other car I have been in with Traction Control)

If the wheel is spinning, you have no additional traction from that wheel. Maximum forward force will be achieved just short of the breakaway point.

Worse yet a conventional differencial, which I assume a prius has, provides maximum torque to the faster spinning wheel. This means that the wheel that is on the slick spot gets more of the engines power than the one on the dry spot, and the more power applied, the greater the loss of power to the wheel with traction.

What traction control does is stop the free spinning wheel so that the non freespining wheel can get some traction.

Skip, what you fail to realize is that when both wheels are on the same slippery surface the idiotic traction-control cuts in and all forward motion is stopped. Wheel-spin would with out a doubt help. Spinning the tires would let me claw down to where there is traction.
If the Australian Prius has an on-off button, why can't mine?

i think to "claw down" to pavement only works if the surface can be clawed down to. what good is it to clear one small patch of road just to roll onto another slippery patch of road and be in the same situation??

Toyota assumes that slipperage comes from driving too fast for road conditions and I for one thinks Toyota did it right.

Roger, where is the switch and have you made any effort to see where the wires go? Do you have access to the wiring diagrams for your Aussie Prius?

Roger, you stated "what good is it to clear one small patch of road just to roll onto another slippery patch of road and be in the same situation??"
You have already answered your question. "Roll" is the key word here. The word suggests movement and therefore inertia. Movement and inertia are exactly what you need to get you moving when you are in a slippery situation.
I think the T-C has its place, but there should be a way to defeat it when it gets confused. I don't need or want electronic traning wheels all of the time.

I would tell your wife to stop driving off-road and to nag you to purchase better tires.

I experienced what I guess was traction control when starting from a red light. It was very disconcerting. It felt like the car was missing or stalling. This was on a dry road. It must have been a glitch, but I'm not looking forward to snowy conditions.

My 2002 GTI had a switch to turn off traction control and the car manual mentioned that under some circumstances this would be necessary; in circumstances such as mentioned above. My brother in law's 2004 Chrysler 300 also has a switch.

Elvis,
I'm not sure why Toyota decided against an on/off switch for the traction control--more than one person here has claimed a need for such an option. However, even if they had installed one, it seems to me that your particular situation may result in less than optimal performance. After all, with or without traction control, it is likely that the Prius will have trouble handling unplowed rural roads. If I were you (and I'm not trying to be a smart aleck) I would consider a different vehicle altogether--especially if I had a wife and baby out driving on a cold winter's night.

Moo

You definitely need to be able to turn it off, such as in the situation described by ElvisPrius. Traction control is good for drag racing tho.

The constant spinning of wheels and the resulting creeping forward is sometimes the only way to get out of being bogged. traction control doesn't allow this to happen and so makes sure you stay bogged. Hence the switch.

Mine is located to the left of the steering wheel, (so between the steering wheel and the centre of the car) and there is a blank same shape/size area next to it for another switch.

I used to have a Camry and one fine snow covered winter morning, I found that I couldn't drive up the hill from my house. There was NO WAY that I could get my tires to turn at a slow enough speed even in low gear, to keep the traction control from kicking in and stopping the wheels altogether. After wondering for a few minutes how I was going to get to work, I remembered that there was a switch to turn off the traction control. I spun my wheels up the hill and got to work on time. I am in complete agreement with ElvisPrius. There really needs to be a way to disable the traction control in those rare circumstances where it literally prevents you from driving your car. I am not looking forward to driving in the snow or, even more so, on ice. Those of you who think that driving with permanent traction control is no big deal must not have any hills in your neighborhood...

Disclaimer: Heresay and bad memory at play....

I thought someone told me that the reason we can't disable TRAC in the Prius is to prevent overspinning in the planetary gears or something. Seems that it could damage the system.

Evan,

I remember hearing that before too. I'm still gonna be mighty bummed when/if I get stuck this winter... I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The Prius IS slightly less gravitationally challenged than my old Camry I guess