Hi all, I test drove a 2018 Niro EX in Calgary Alberta on compacted snow/ice and some handling & traction problems
1) When the front wheels slipped It felt like the the traction control was cutting power to one of the 2 drive wheels, Then I think the remaining drive wheel then got more power which caused it to then immediately break loose from of whatever traction it had had.
2) Strange handling in skids. Normally in a fwd if your sliding or spinning on a circular axis you can give it a give it tiny bit of gas and the front wheels will pull you back into straight line so your at least not also spinning in a circle as you skid. The traction control 's power to only 1 wheel during a skid felt like it was adding to the circular spin rather than recovering from it.
3) Once I turned of traction control it handled better but I noticed another problem: The engine was unpredictability switching between gas and electric power which would would cause the front wheels to break loose at unexpected times. possibly this is something that can be accounted for once you get used to the gas pedal.
Putting it into sport mode didn't seem to help as much as I though it should have. but I might be confusing what settings I had enabled at this point in the test drive and I was in sport mode with traction control enabled, aka power 1 wheeling.
Has anyone else noticed these issues? Are there any solutions other than always driving in sport mode with traction control off?
Also does the niro it handle better with winter tires? I was pretty close to the base model so I'm pretty sure it had all seasons on. Stopping distance was decent evedn with all seasons, but cornering and emergency recovery has me weary of the Niro in a place where it's winter 4 months a year.
1) When the front wheels slipped It felt like the the traction control was cutting power to one of the 2 drive wheels, Then I think the remaining drive wheel then got more power which caused it to then immediately break loose from of whatever traction it had had.
2) Strange handling in skids. Normally in a fwd if your sliding or spinning on a circular axis you can give it a give it tiny bit of gas and the front wheels will pull you back into straight line so your at least not also spinning in a circle as you skid. The traction control 's power to only 1 wheel during a skid felt like it was adding to the circular spin rather than recovering from it.
3) Once I turned of traction control it handled better but I noticed another problem: The engine was unpredictability switching between gas and electric power which would would cause the front wheels to break loose at unexpected times. possibly this is something that can be accounted for once you get used to the gas pedal.
Putting it into sport mode didn't seem to help as much as I though it should have. but I might be confusing what settings I had enabled at this point in the test drive and I was in sport mode with traction control enabled, aka power 1 wheeling.
Has anyone else noticed these issues? Are there any solutions other than always driving in sport mode with traction control off?
Also does the niro it handle better with winter tires? I was pretty close to the base model so I'm pretty sure it had all seasons on. Stopping distance was decent evedn with all seasons, but cornering and emergency recovery has me weary of the Niro in a place where it's winter 4 months a year.