Automatic Chains

auto chains work ok when used in snow up to six inches but after that you need real chains good luck

 

While I am sure there are a lot of people who are fans of them I can say, having driven School Bus in Wyoming that they are not a full replacement for traditional chains. IMHO for the cost, if safety and not mere compliance is your main goal, you are better buying half way decent tires. While there are many options tires with lots of siping like Michelin XDN2.

As others have mentioned there are several issues with them.

• If you aren't moving they simply do not deploy.
• The air chambers often do not have enough umph to retract the chains very much.
• Once you get into more than a few inches of snow they will still rotate but not reliably swing under the tire.
• If you get stuck they are practically useless.
• The max usable speed is well below a transport grade chain.
• One or two links one a few strands usually dangle close to the road and wear out and you have to replace the entire spider or when you try to use them they are out of balance
• The manufactures say that they only really work on ice, packed snow, and up to 6 inches of snow. Packed snow is fairly high traction and <6" isn't a major storm IMHO. I will be parked during ice storms so outside of casual use to get up individual icy routes they don't solve a lot of weather challanges.

They are useful if you need to deal with ice and they are the only option for some cases like a school bus which would have body damage from traditional chain but for the most part in school busses most drivers only use them for last resort because if they don't retract you will miss you timepoints and kids will be waiting in often dangerous weather.

That said I can have two drives and two drag chains on in less than 10 min as I have had a lot of practice and I simply do not trust onspot chains to deploy and retract and getting under a vehicle to fix them is far riskier than installing chains.

Perhaps if you are just driving on plowed Interstates with chain rules in effect they may be a bit more useful but as School bus drivers typically have to drive on roads with large drifts and which are way down on the plowing priority list I would probably leverage traditional chains if given the choice even if a vehicle was equipped with auto chains.

Obviously your use case and expectations may differ.

 

Honestly I don't know what brand they were. Basically they were an air brake chamber with a retracting arm, at the end of which was a wheel that rode against the inside edge of a tire and spun chain lengths under each tire. The owner of the truck I was using them on also had heavy duty mud and snow tires on the truck, and the only times I needed to deploy the chains was on interstates when chain restrictions went up. On back roads I just powered through with my tires and never had a problem. On packed snow and ice, I was able to cruise at around 25 MPH.

With my own truck now I just use mud and snow tires and carry the auto socks to stay legal. I avoid snow and plan my loads around weather conditions. Haven't had to chain up or use the socks yet.

 

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