Eli5: why you should go slow with snowchains and does it matter if there are winter tires or all weather ones underneath and why you should keep wheels spinning in deep snow(and maybe in mud etc.)?

Question

**E: I ment the last one without chains, sorry!**

Hi! So basically the title. Watched a clip from top gear and all those questions popped up.

Cheers! 🙂

In: Engineering

Answer 1

It has been 45 years since I have used tire chains and I am sure lots of things have changed in that time so be forgiving if others tell you I don’t know what I am talking about!

You go slow with chains because of friction. The faster you go the hotter they are going to get. This makes them stretch a bit, which can cause them to start whacking something on your car. And if you don’t get them tight enough at the start, they whack your car. Also, if the weather is bad enough to require chains you don’t need to be driving very fast anyways.

You can use them on any tire, I ran mine on mag wheels and sporty (for the time) tires. Not the best option, obviously, but it can work.

I don’t know about keeping your wheels spinning, that sounds wrong to me. They do bite in when they are spinning but if you still aren’t going anywhere I fail to see how spinning would help.

I also do not about using them on FWD or AWD vehicles, I’m sure that adds another layer of complication.

Hope this helps, and hope it isn’t too wrong after all this time, but no one else had responded.