Sunday, November 11, 2012

Tire Chains

Winter is upon us which means slipping and sliding down the road. Good tires and four wheel/all wheel drive may be all you will need.  There may be an occasion when you need traction chains. There is a certain social stigma for true mountain people chaining up - right up there with having to grab a saddle horn - but a man has to do what a man has to do (or a woman).

First, have right and proper chains. In  my experience  cable chains are crap. Maybe good for a couple of miles until they come off,  and useless in mud.  Along with chains have some means of inflating tires if you are not close to a gas station with an air hose.

Let out some air. If you have a tire pressure gauge let out about 5 lbs. Put your chains on the DRIVE wheels (you do know if your vehicle is front or rear wheel drive, don't you) hand tight. Now add 5 to 10 lbs of air. It will not hurt your tires to slightly over inflate them. This will help keep the chains tight. Loose chains can break and give you a custom body look.

Be prepared to turn off your traction control if so equipped. Traction control works by detecting wheel spin and applying momentary braking to the spinning wheel. A steep driveway, a 10 - 20 mph uphill curve  and mud in general may cause enough slippage by each drive wheel to cause you to bog down from the braking. In mud, traction control will eventually cause you to bog down.

Do I know what I'm talking about? Probably not; only had an operators license for 54 years.

Of course, if you live in the South and never leave hard surfaced roads, this is useless advice.

4 comments:

Ami said...

Here's how I do tire chains.
First, I live somewhere that it's very rare to see a lot of snow. If it snows, we have 4wd on our big truck. If we're ever required to chain up, I make sure we're carrying a huge tarp so he doesn't have to lie in the snow or get all wet while he puts the chains on.
:)

Well Seasoned Fool said...

@ Ami. Good points. Seems every year in the PNW, the Pineapple Express meets an Arctic air mass and you get two feet of concrete that lasts for days before it melts. One very good reason to have a wood stove.

Old NFO said...

Ah yes... DRIVE wheels... :-) Funniest thing I've seen was a big 73 Caddy convertible going up to Tahoe with chains on the REAR wheels...

Well Seasoned Fool said...

@ NFO. Hilarious. Had a similar experience.

http://wellseasonedfool.blogspot.com/2011/10/this-is-cadillac.html