Posted by David Sherman on Tuesday, December 26, 2006 at 13:46:36 :
In Reply to: OT Cable tire chains for cars? posted by Nickathome on Tuesday, December 26, 2006 at 09:44:49 :
I use them on my Honda car when required by law but that's about it. In Idaho they leave it up to the drivers to decide when to chain up, but in Washington, on all the Cascade passes they have strict rules and cops checking when chains are required. You can go faster on cable chains than real chains and they work fine on highway-packed snow and ice. There's no point in trying to go in deep snow with a rice wagon anyway because they're way too low to the ground. Obviously, driving them around on bare pavement eats them up fast. I usually find that the front-wheel drive honda car with decent snow tires and intelligent driving does better than the average 2WD vehicle. One thing I don't like about front wheel drive is you have to chain up the front to get any traction, but if you try to stop fast, that'll have you pointing backwards pretty quick. I generally use the hand brake rather than the engine for braking on downgrades with the honda for the same reason. On my trucks, I always use real chains because I'm almost always going up in the mountains on unplowed roads somewhere and nothing beats real chains. If need be, the wheels will spin and the chains will dig the snow and ice down until they get a bite on something solid.
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