Automatic snow tires throw chains at your wheels [video] (opens in new tab)

It is not folklore. Take it from someone who lives in the actual north. My car doesnt see bare pavement for months. A two wheel drive car, with snow tires, will run rings around a 4x4 with summer tires. Chains are great, but have speed and distance limitations. We drive at 50mph/80kph on snow, on highways even faster. (Drive on snow every day and you get used to it.) No chain set will last long at such speeds. They are tools for short term issues like getting through a mountain pass.

A less understood aspect of snow tires is their flexibility in cold. A summer tire will stiffen up below -30. Park it overnight and it will have a flat spot the next morning. It will bounce the car until enough heat builds up in the tire for it to soften. The higher silicon content of proper winter tires prevents this.

This type of driving, except whitehorse is much warmer than where i am (our rivers/lakes remain frozen): https://youtu.be/a_hmPxBUZvc

> I'd heard the folklore that snow tires are more important than all wheel drive for handling on both snow and ice

All wheel drive helps zero with winter conditions, except for going uphill or some other acceleration-equivalent action. Quite the opposite really - many people have experienced how with 4x4 you don't get a warning before you just lose your grip and off the road you go. For the record I'm driving a 4x4, but using summer tires in the winter, with or without engaging 4x4, the car will simply be like Bambi on the ice. Going downhill would mean that I wouldn't stop before hitting something or ending up in the sea. 4x4 doesn't matter for that.

The first thing I do when getting a new car (I always by second hand cars - not that I buy them often, but I'm old enough to have gone through a few) is to buy the best possible summer and winter tires I can get, particularly the latter. That goes before any other investment in the car. I had enough of bad tires when I was very young and without any money.

EditAdd: Many people comment about ice and studded tires. Yes, studded tires are better, not just on ice, but on many kinds of packed snow conditions as well. For some conditions they are the only good option (interestingly enough, this does not always mean that they're better than studless tires on all kinds of ice - it depends on the ice). However, if there's a lot of bare asphalt around, as is often the case when there's a lot of traffic, then studs aren't particularly popular (road wear etc), and in some countries in Europe with lots of bare roads in the winter they're illegal (e.g. Germany IIRC).

As for winter tires without studs, on ice, be aware that there are great differences between brands and types. My father's car had stud-less winter tires while my car had studded tires, and I drove both cars on the same roads and his car behaved well, even on ice or "glassy" snow. But then the tires got old and he replaced with brand new tires, but a different type - much newer, so should be better, right? Not so. Very different to drive. Dangerous I would say, and in fact he got into an accident because of that. I checked that place with my own car afterwards, and no doubt his old tires would have held up just fine.

FYI there is a new category of tire called "all weather", which have the little mountain-snowflake symbol used for snow tires. They're basically all-seasons rated for snow. I haven't seen a comparison against pure snow tires, but they do perform much better than all-seasons in snow.

Every car is no wheel drive when there is enough slip

> So called "all season" tires are not snow tires.

Fun fact: US "all season" tyres are sold in EU as summer tyres.

You want to look into "all weather" tyres. The good one are rough equivalent to cheap winter tyre and decent summer tyre. It's still not worth it IMO if you're driving a lot but after COVID I drive little enough that I wouldn't get thru 2 sets of tyres before they rot away.

I never understood the opposition to good winter tires. Apart from the chore of shifting, and the added investment of an extra set of rims (usually), the cost of the tires isn't any larger over the long term. You wear two sets of tires interchangably so they last longer.

> I'd heard the folklore that snow tires are more important than all wheel drive for handling on both snow and ice, and having used them for a few years now, I'm a believer.

That seems obvious. AWD means you can use the traction of all tyres to move. But without snow tyres you have no traction, so AWD does nothing.

> So called "all season" tires are not snow tires.

Not quite true, there are 3PMSF all-season tyres, and unrated ASTs might behave well on snow, it depends on the compromises the manufacturer decided on, as the point of an ASF is to balance dry, wet, and snow. But where the manufacturer decides to put the balance is very relevant. That a tyre is all-season doesn't mean it's all-of-your-location-seasons.

In fact, you can have ASTs which are excellent in the snow and absolute shit on dry and wet, that's what "tyre reviews" found with the Tomket Allyear 3 (https://www.tyrereviews.com/Tyre/Tomket/Allyear-3.htm) for instance.

Also technically unrated "winter tyres" may not be suitable for snow either, they might be using better winterised compounds and deeper thread patterns but not sufficiently so to behave well on snow.

Snow tires are great but they really don't help with ice. The only reliable ice traction in my experience are tire chains or studs.

Living in the upper Midwest here as well (Michigan) it's amazing how common the "you don't really need snow tires, you just need to know how to drive" is.

I drive pretty well, and getting snow tires made a huge difference in predictability. Braking is more consistent, acceleration is more consistent, and most importantly the point at which I lose traction when cornering is fairly consistent and predictable.

Yes, there's the overhead cost of a second set of wheels and TPMS sensors (because after a few years it's break-even with having the tires themselves swapped, and this way I can swap them myself when winter hits), but overall the cost isn't that significant because it offsets wear on my all-seasons. And it's so, so, so much better when it does snow. Or is icy. Or even is quite cold and just wet, because the tires are still flexible at temps when all seasons get quite hard and plasticky.

My ordering based on personal experience would be:

AWD + Winter > AWD + All-Season > FWD + Winter > FWD + All-Season

There are plenty of videos[1] showing the above. I guess it should come as no surprise that it comes down to the vehicle, the tires, the conditions, and the driver.

At least for me driving in the PNW (temps usually not too much below freezing), Kumho Crugens (all-season) on my AWD SUV are way superior to Michelin X-Ice (winter) on my FWD minivan. Braking is longer on snow and ice with all-seasons, so I leave 8 car lengths of distance minimum when following other cars. The SUV has superior ESC and traction control that way out perform the minivan.

Several times in my FWD minivan with winter tires, I have been unable to go uphill on icy roads and had to put on chains. Whereas the AWD has no issues at all.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRYHlb61_9Q

Just make sure you take them off in the summer. They go away really fast in warm weather.

Can confirm. I’ve owned front wheel and all wheel drive minivans, both with all season and proper snow tires.

Snow tires are much more effective than all wheel drive, but having both is (obviously) better.

Yup. I live in the mountains in Canada, have a FWD car with snow tires. Runs circles around trucks or SUVs with all-seasons.

Do you have any thoughts about how they help with breaking? The "rotation of the wheel rotates the chain" makes me think they'll not help during breaking that much. They would probably slip from under the tire, and the next chain would not go under...

as a large truck mechanic i can say theyre okay and degrade roads casually because operators suck at learning how to use them.. in real winters like Alberta the drivewheel is either frozen to the motorized arm all the time, or glides like a ballerina against a wall of ice from the tire. this is a solution for a problem of casual issue, like climate change in the south usa perhaps :)

It seems like one of those things that's probably more common than you think, given that you'd have to pay very close attention and know what you're looking for to see them in use.

I've seen them mostly on local (Boston area) fire trucks.

A school-bus or box truck that will basically get stuck everywhere if it doesn't have something under the driven axle. Braking is not what's limiting the conditions these vehicles can work in. Getting stuck because you stopped at a red light on a slight hill is more their problem which is what these chains solve.

That's a fair question, though I would guess that, unless the wheel is locked, it is no more likely to slip out under braking traction than driving traction. That figure may well be higher than for fitted chains or studded tires.

AWD has the characteristic of improving driving traction while doing very little for braking or steering, as demonstrated by the guy who passed us and then rear-ended the mail delivery van.

patented on 1915, filed for patent at 1912

The same concern also exists for traditional snow chains.

“Up to 30%” as well!

And likely beat the crap out of your undercarriage.

Related question: If the alignment of the rotating discs goes out, can these chains turn into undercarriage destroyers?

And rough on the pavement

This is the content I am looking for in 2023.

If you had them, and were about to fall over, would there be room to put a boot on the floor between those flails? Would you dare try it?

On the other hand, chances are it would make cars stay a safe distance away.

Yes, but then so would normal snow chains. These are meant for icy inclines, nothing else, really, but that’s the same as snow chains, only those take longer to put on and off.