Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club | chains versus cables

hey guy's and girls im wondering about your opinion on snow chains and cables,im having a delema because because ill be needing to cross over the Coke to pick up my daughter from now on and ive priced out chains at crapy tire for $139 or cables for $90 i was thinking for that price i ill buy two sets of cables for front and back (precious cargo on the way back) so whats your opinion cables or chains better or worse.

Thanks Rich

Chains front and rear.

Cables are go for putting around the city in going slow. They slip and slide. Chains will get you from A to B period.

The $80 difference should be worth the precious cargo.

Check out what Noel has for sale.



"V bar HD tire chains" is the search.

I used http://www.scc-chain.com/Traction%20Pages/Trac_SZLT.html out of town last winter and was really happy with the result.

anyone run just snow tyres? never used snow chains and only snow tyres on the delica.

The only real use for chains is the bags of sand they replace. Sure at slow speed in deep snow or on sheets of ice they will give you traction, but who would actually want to use them on the highway. Before spending money on chains, see how long they take to put on in good conditions, then try again in typical chain conditions with cold, wet hands. They don't get tight enough to use at speeds more than 20 km/hr (except maybe Falco's custom ones) which generally results in damage to your vehicle as they slap around the wheel wells. I've carried chains for 15 years, and only used them once.

A good set of winter tires is a far better investment for driving than $300 of chains.

Just my two cents, from a northern perspective.

chains are great for getting you to places nobody else can get to... they aren't so good for highway use... just get some really good tires and you'll be much happier on the highway.

Chains aren't really meant for the road, not for extended periods anyway. They'll chew the ever-living-5hit out of your tires if you drive with them on the pavement for too long. Chains are, however, good for non-paved roads, dirt roads, off-road, completely snow-packed roads, or roads that don't generally have pavement on them. Short distances on paved roads are good, but you should remove them after you're back on clear pavement. And by clear I mean that when you drive over the snow-covered road, your tread goes all the way or nearly all the way down through the snow to the pavement (say 5-8cm).

Cables are really meant for paved roads. Snow tires with studs are meant for paved roads (or ice roads). Snow tires are meant for roads. And both cables with snow tires are meant for lightly covered snowy roads. I'm not talking the Trans-Siberian Highway (you should use chains), but downtown Calgary or Kamloops or Saskatoon with roads that get plowed on a regular basis. Driving from North Battleford to Fort McMurray (sp?) in the dead of winter, you should probably have chains.

And NO! "All season" tires don't count for nothing when the sign says "winter" tires. Some A/T tires will count if they've got a snow rating (and some of them do), but "all season" tires is a real misnomer. It's one of those wonderfully-misleading phrases in English that doesn't really mean what it should, like "near-miss", or "pre-heat", and everybody's favourite: "military intelligence".

Thanks guys,it is still something i want to get for off road winters your probabley right and i dont think the coke will be to bad anyways,i do know however they wern't letting people go on without SNOW TIRES or some chains ,and i dont have the money to buy new tiers,so i was waying some options,but if anyone has a set of snow tiersthey want to part with? i know at this time of year its a bit of a stupid question.

Thanks folks
rich

Agree that James is right.

Man it sucked as once with cable chains, and not the cheapies, destroyed a wheel well on our 6 month old Camry.

Only if you mean by "regular" once a year. Calgary seems to think that summer is a type of snow plow. They will send a plow down the major streets a couple of days after a snow fall -- when everything is already polished to ice -- and leave snow banks all over. But in the 12 years I've lived here, a plow has come down my street exactly once, and gravel or sanding trucks come through maybe twice a year.

Sorry for the rant, but I come from Montreal, where within 48 hours of a snowfall, ALL streets have been plowed and cleared. And that includes the sidewalks.

It's good to know that some things haven't changed since I left Calgary for the Navy 20 years ago.

Agreed 100%. How many of you ever go anywhere serious to ever need chains? I mean really. I do tons of driving on logging roads in the winter, and a lot of off-the-beaten track. Snow tires serve me just fine. Chains are a last resort, and it never seems to come to that. I do run studs on my minitruck, but thats just because I have that option. Yet I am still not convinced the studs are any better than a good snow tire.

And we have had snow for over a month already.

Josh