| Description: | Winter driving conditions can change from mild to wild in the blink of an eye — and when the roads are at their very worst, many drivers rely on tire chains to provide a confidence-boosting spike in traction.
In simple terms, tire chains or snow chains are installed around your vehicle’s drive wheels on an as-needed basis, where they wrap around the tires to help provide an increased bite into the surface beneath.
Tire chains are designed for occasional use in the most severe conditions. As such, they’re stored on board the vehicle until needed, when drivers install them just ahead of traveling through deep snow and treacherous roads. With tire chains mounted, you’ll experience a dramatic improvement in traction and grip for accelerating and braking in deep snow, on ice, or in an off-road setting.
But tire chains can damage pavement, negatively affect a vehicle’s handling, and are typically intended for low-speed use, so they need to be removed once the vehicle is clear of the conditions that they were installed to tackle.
Tire chains come in many shapes and forms, including some that aren’t even chains at all. For instance, cable chains are a popular alternative and amount to steel cables (rather than steel chains) that wrap around the wheels and tires. Other alternatives include rubberized and studded strap-on traction shoes or traction-enhancing blocks that are strapped to the wheels to help free a stuck vehicle. |
