Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheepdip
I have a question for all of you who live in snow country....Out here in California the highways are very tightly controlled for tire chain installations, when and where the snow falls, including black ice.
In I believe it was January 1998 I was working in Princeton/Evansville Indiana on the Toyota plant being constructed at that time. Winter hit and it piled up with about a foot of snow, I went to the auto parts to get some tire chains for the company truck and they looked at me like I was totally out of my mind and proceeded to inform me that nobody uses those things.
I finally got them to order me a pair. I personally did make it to the jobsite everyday with no mishaps with rear tire chains, but it really amazed me how many people flew by at 70 mph only to be passed later piled up in a ditch or up a hill.
So why no tire chains for you snow country drivers?
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Before we moved to MT and lived in western CO we had 2wd pickup and suburban and had chains for both. I had given up on buying and maintaining 4wds. We hardly ever used the chains on the suburban but I used them a lot on my pickup when logging. I would just do like the log truck drivers and put the chains on at a nice flat smooth place once you got up to the snow line. Since I had a camper trailer I just left my chains on all week but the truck drivers put chains on/off every trip. Those twin screws with the trailers loaded up and chains on would go almost anywhere.
I do have to laugh at people nowadays. Back when I started driving there were very few 4wd, no AWD, and virtually everything was RWD. In CO most people had an extra wheel or two and had snow tires for the rear. These were all bias ply tires of course but most everyone got around just fine. The problem came when it was 70 degrees one day and snowing the next and you hadn't put your snow tires on yet. If it was a really bad storm then everyone just stayed home and there were the few 4wd owners who would volunteer to taxi essential workers like doctors and nurses to their jobs.
I can remember when there was a big snow and the streets were empty and driving my new 4wd pickup through two or three foot deep drifts
And that was just on 750-16 bias ply highway tires. When I finally got something with radials on it I thought why would anyone ever need snow tires or even 4wd?
These days "we" have radials, all seasons, all terrains, special winter tires, and All Wheel Drive just to get to the grocery store for a loaf of bread, yet it seems like everyone is stuck or in the ditch all the time. And then they all argue about which AWD is the only one to have ….
The last 16+ years we have lived way out in the hills and a 4wd is almost essential here except for a couple months of the year, not so much because of snow but because of mud. Our "go to" vehicle in the winter is an old Jeep Cherokee with just all season tires all around. It goes through everything without hardly noticing it, from a couple inches of snow up to drift two feet deep. But I know how to drive; I don't just floor it to take off and expect some damn computer to keep the wheels from spinning.
PS: oh yeah the jeep has a full time setting and we just leave it there all the time so it is essentially AWD: no fancy stuff just three open differentials. It also has 2wd, regular 4wd-hi, and 4wd-lo. I do get spoiled with it because you can just drive and not think much about traction. On anything resembling a normal road, the stock suspension has enough flex to keep the weight balanced on all four wheels.