I am thinking of buying a new Prius and am concerned about ground clearance. I live on Okla and on a gravel road with some good pot holes that will even give my Camry fits. Has any one had one of this on gravel roads or do I get to be the first?
There's a guy on the yahoo prius group that took his off road (through meadows, fire trails, etc) when pursuing his hobby of photography. He reported no problems.
The clearance is roughly the same as the Camry. I seldom take either off road because of rocks chipping the paint.
Daniel
I live on a gravel road and I've found that stones hitting the underside of the vehicle generate considerably more noise (compared to the current model Camry that I also drive) due to the low ground clearance and aerodynamic covers. Driving up loose gravel hills (even slowly) causes the vehicle stability system to activate repeatedly. From my experience I wouldn't hesitate at taking the Prius off road but a Camry would certainly get further if the wheel tracks are dug in. I'm not impressed with the low front entry angle of the vehicle since the car is more likely to scrape the ground on entering steep driveways compared to similarly sized vehicles. I found that surprising considering how close the front wheels are to the front of the vehicle. The suspension handles pot holes and speed bumps at high speed very well though.
bigguy wrote:
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