Snow Chains

[Davey]

No, I wasn't, it is a term that I never met while living in the US. "Knobblies" was their term. See also my other reply. And thanks.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yeah. I first met it in rallying in-speak. But today you can get Winter tyres M + S tyres All terrain tyres.. Off road tyres.

and a million other marketing-speak terms for 'a tyre optimised for less than normal conditions'

[Dave Liquorice]

I guess that is what the sipes do. As the tyre deforms as it rolls along the sipes open, snow get's shoved in the sipe then closes through the contact patch and opens again on the trailing edge deformation.

I suspect the pressure of the closing sipe will make the snow in it freeze and possibly a little out into the body of the snow over which the tyre is traveling. Ice is stronger than snow.

Well it's a theory...

[Jim K]

torque wrench? wheel nuts? "properly"

nah!

Jim K

[dennis]

ITYM mud and slush.

[Davey]

You and 99.9999999999999999999999999% of everybody else on the road.

--=20 Davey.

[bert]

Most tyres used for Off-road are MTs - Mud Terrains - or have they now started calling them M&S? Big chunky treads so they don't clog up with mud so easily and become a slick. Noisy on road and especially not so good in the wet.

[ARW]

And that is always the biggest problem. It seems that everyone now just puts on more revs when the car does not move in the snow. There is a lack of basic training for such things.

I would have been about 13 years old when it snowed heavily and my Dad took me to the school carpark - it was closed and he taught me how to drive in the snow in a Ford Sierra.

And yes we did fill the boot up with sacks of coal to give a little weight on the rear end before we set off.

[ARW]

But at least we have a road when the snow melts!

[Jim K]

ey up mother, if't whippets int bath, where'st coal?

Jim K

[Jim K]

"M+S" tyres are not necessarily so aggressive tread wise, my 4wd had Toyo M+S rated on it when new, they looked, drove & sounded just like "ordinary" tyres to me....

Jim K

[Jules Richardson]

The advice is the same, even with M+S tyres - they just let you get to where you're going a bit quicker :-)

They're very common where I am in the US, but I don't think I'd heard of them prior to moving over here.

We had a set on the car and they did indeed make a difference, and they initially coped well with non M+S conditions - but then they suddenly seemed to wear extremely quickly, such that they ended up lasting for much less time than I'd expect from a regular tyre.

It may be highly brand dependent (I can't for the life of me remember what brand the ones we had were), but for that reason I'd only ever run two sets now, probably keeping a second set of wheels with them on so that it was less hassle to swap.

cheers

Jules

[Dave Liquorice]

But there is a tarmac road under there when the snow melts. Wide enough for two cars to pass without slowing down too much.

[Jules Richardson]

bikes with blades fitted instead, plus I see lots of trucks with plough blades (there are probably more pickups around here than there are cars).

cheers

Jules

[Dave Liquorice]

No Mud Terrains are different from (to?) M&S's. Muds are as you say and are not as good on snow as M&S or a winter tyre. Dig back up the thread to a post of mine that has links to an image of a M&S tyre (Pirelli Scorpian STR).

[The Other Mike]

Just another summer day in Yorkshire

[The Other Mike]

It used to be that two or three decades ago but many now call them mud and snow

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

In my first experience of driving in snow in 1960's Renaults 4, 8 and

10 with narrow tyres I'd second the narrow tyre approach for most snow conditions on UK/Irish roads [1]. In some parts, of course, conditions would warrant the other approach. [1] I was able to get by dozens of stranded cars driven by clueless twonks.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Sure it's not C&A?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Many of them aren't small, either.