scubaman99 said:
Hey so tell me about running in DEEP snow and using chains... do you chain one or two axles... and if only one... do you chain front or back first?
I don't know that I'm the expert, but my preference is this:
I generally use a mud type tire, with added siping cut for winter conditions.
If it's bad enough to put on chains, I want chains front and rear.
For safety, you should never chain up only the front axle on the highway (even if you have a FWD car). Off-road, chaining up the front may work well, but on the highway chains front-only chains are unsafe: under braking or cornering, you are even MORE likely to spin than if you had no chains at all.
Also, if you don't have a center diff lock, you'll get little benefit from a single set of chains, and your traction control will work your brakes and ABS pump pretty hard. Chain up front and rear.
Using chains, you can drag yourself into snow so deep that it's questionable whether you should really be there. I've used chains over 245/75R16 tires to get a stock F150 around on 3-5 feet of medium-packed snow (i.e. snowmobile trails), but that's not a great idea (screw up and get yourself buried to the axle and you've got a lot of work to do).
At the same time, if the snow is dense and packs well (moderate moisture), sometimes it's better to go without the chains and try to use the minimum throttle possible. In that kind of snow, sometimes the chains just churn up the snow and dig you in as much as they pull you forward, where aired-down MT tires with low throttle can climb up and ride on top as it packs down the trail.
If you need lots of traction (like pulling someone else out of a snow bank), you might need the chains regardless of how deep the snow is. The times I've really NEEDED the chains, I was on hard-packed snow or re-frozen ice, and it wasn't a question of getting my own rig around, but a matter of getting someone else out of the ditch. Then you really need all 4 chains.
This is all about off-road snow. If your concern is on-road snow/ice conditions (as in getting to the slopes to go skiing), get a set of Nokian SUV tires with studs. The studs will take care of you on the ice, and the winter tire tread will take care of you everywhere else (on-road, that is). If you can't use studs where you live, get the same tires but without studs, and carry chains.
Maybe if you live in an area where winter driving is not expected, and you run street tires or dry rock or mud-type tires, carrying a single set of chains to keep you from getting stuck is fine. But generally, if you are carrying chains and expect to cover any distance in them, you should be carrying two sets and chain up both axles when you chain up.
and also keeping momentum. It did do a good job of mobbing up some hills that the bigger cars spun their tires on and had to back up on a couple of times. I was most impressed by the bone stock '03 Disco with four people and two dogs in it that didn't break a sweat on anything.
