my town has a few 4x4 police and fire vehicles but they use them for important things, like parking enforcement or the “chief’s” car.
Our rescue squad is all volunteer and usually the LAST on the scene (not a dig on them, my employer owns 2 ambulance companies and they will stop at nothing to get as many calls as possible).
My car is AWD so I don’t plan on using the chains unless it’s an ice rink out there. I need them for “show” because when the roads are snowy the CHP requires that you at least carry chains. They usually don’t require that you use them on AWD vehicles, but you must carry them. So I pull up to the CHP, show them the box and drive off.
have you guys never heard of winter tires?? no one uses chains in quebec and its illegal to drive on the road with them. and the conditions here are way worst then what you guys get.
My brother lives in South Lake Tahoe and just got some Blizzaks, he LOVES them. I however am stuck in sunny socal ( :vomit: ) which means I have a 5.5hr drive to the mountains. It’s a 340mi drive, during the most intense winter storms maybe 40mi of that would be on snowy roads, usually more like 10mi. A few years back I was thinking winter tires would be the way to go, but in my situation it’d be a bad idea as I’d just wear them out extremely quickly from all the non-snow driving they’d see.
depends on how cold it is. if its below 0*C then the winter tires won’t use up to quickly. some people just keep their winter tires on all year around here (bad idea) and they last about a year, year and a half.
also if you would only need them when you go up to the mountains which i assume must not be that often then they would last a couple years for sure. you would just need to swap them before you leave. but for the others i don’t know. i’ve driven a car with chains before and i don’t know how you do it. shakes like crazy and rips out the fenders and stuff if they come loose. seems like a bad idea to me.
[QUOTE=redtegra;2114534]depends on how cold it is. if its below 0*C then the winter tires won’t use up to quickly. some people just keep their winter tires on all year around here (bad idea) and they last about a year, year and a half.
also if you would only need them when you go up to the mountains which i assume must not be that often then they would last a couple years for sure. you would just need to swap them before you leave. but for the others i don’t know. i’ve driven a car with chains before and i don’t know how you do it. shakes like crazy and rips out the fenders and stuff if they come loose. seems like a bad idea to me.[/QUOTE]
Trust me, I’ve done the math and it’s not practical in my situation. When I got my Subaru I wanted nothing more than to have snow tires for my Mammoth trips and be able to mob through the snow like an ice racing car but when it comes down to it, a good set of all season tires still function very well in the snow (Subaru AWD is really good) and as of yet I’ve never needed chains.