Snow chains are surprisingly quick and easy to fit!
Snow chains are technical products but they are much easier and much quicker to use than most people think. But you do need to be shown what to do - we have fitting videos for all our chains - and you also need to practise.
All the chains we sell are fast fitting, even the bus and truck chains. Things were different 20 years ago which is why an older generation who remember snowy winters of old still dismiss snow chains as too much of a hassle. In those days you needed to lay them on the ground and then drive on to them!
The Swiss Spikes-Spider system is the fastest to fit and remove, followed by the Polaire GRIP, Polaire STEEL GRIP, König K-Summit and König Easy-fit.
Using snow chains in the UK is a sensible thing to do
There's no real tradition of using snow chains in the UK, probably because (see above) snow chains were hard work when we had serious snow in the 60s and 70s, and it's only in the last few years that snow is becoming once again a routine element of UK winters.
Most UK snow chains sales until 2010 were to people who were going ski driving in the Alps, but the market has changed massively since then - we assure you that there are huge numbers of people buying snow chains for UK use only!
Snowchains do a different job to AutoSock / snow socks
Should you buy snow chains or AutoSock snow socks? It makes sense to buy both, ideally, because they have different uses. AutoSock work in all snow conditions, including in slush where snowchains are useless, but they are easily damaged by hard, frozen, rutted snow, especially where slush has frozen overnight - which is where snowchains work really well.
If you are only budgeting for one system, we suggest that AutoSock will be adequate for most winters, and they are also smaller to store, intuitive to fit, and cover many more tyre sizes than snow chains.
If you are ski-driving to the Alps, we recommend that you take snowchains, ideally also with a pair of AutoSock to fit to the non-driving wheels, or rear wheels on a 4x4.