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Originally Posted by chapchap70
I deliver fuel oil and the company I work for has automatic chains on their trucks. I was able to test them out for the first time the past couple of days and they worked great. I was able to go up hills when almost empty. I'm not sure this is the company but the chains on the truck look just like the ones in the picture. I do not know how much they cost.
http://www.insta-chain.com/
Now if I can just get some for my boots so I can walk up the icy hills while pulling the hose. :lol: |
We run those insta-chains on all our fire engines here.
They are very good but are only "niche-fillers" IMHO. They are great for our fire trucks...always there, flip a switch and they are on! We used to run "traditional chains..but, you either had to leave them on all the time in inclement (with the chance that you would get a call when it wasn't bad then...either drop them quickly or run dry roads with chains on)weather or try to throw them on in a rush when you got a fire call and had to roll in bad weather. We also used a device called "tractioneers" for a while...they were REALLY cool....big flat steel bars across the duals laterally...attached with a turnbuckle...but they had the nasty tendency to come off...and when they did...they sort of ball up and lay in the middle of the road.....big traffic hazard. We lost one of those one time up on I-70 and this little chinese guy in a geo prism ran over it....totaled his little car!!!
Back to the topic...I would not count on any "out West" DOT guys counting the insta-chains as being adequate for the chain rule. They are great on ice and light to moderate amounts of snow...but with very heavy snow we found that they tended to bugger up a bit coming down and even engaging the sidewall to spin and then being able to throw the chain link under the tire. In really bad snow we do not engage them...just dig out the old tractioneers or rely on our tires (we run Firestone T831 I think...it looks like a monster mudder tire for 22.5's). They are not applicable for OTR though.
I have also always questioned weather the insta-chain will damage or wear the sidewall too much if you ever run them very far. We never have to....our fire trucks generally get less than 5k miles a year...and maybe 30-100 miles of that is with chains down...so it was never an issue. Our tires never even wear out the tread before we replace them...it is usaully just from dry rot or because we buy new ones every five years...need it or not. But, if one were to run them in an OTR application I would be wary.
Either way, I would never count on them alone...make sure your "traditional" chains are hangin' there...if you never need them so be it....but they are there if you do.
We had a saying in the old fire service...."its better to HAVE it and not NEED it, than to NEED it and not HAVE it"!! (that is also why our trucks are so crammed with sh@t that we can barely close the compartment doors!!----but we rarely, if ever, have need for something we do not already have!)
