Driving in snow: Snow Chains vs Winter Tyres vs Snow Socks

With the cold weather across the UK, and a lot us planning on driving to ski resorts this season, we thought it would be worth taking a look at what works best in the snow when it comes to your car; comparing snow chains, winter tyres and snow socks. We explain what each are, take a look at the pros and cons and give our verdict.

Snow Socks

Snow socks are textile covers which you put over your car’s driving wheels (the wheels which the power come from). The specially designed fabric of the sock maximises friction and so gives extra grip on icy roads.

Pros

• They’re fairly easy and quick to fit. Most take around 2 minutes per tyre to put on.
• They aren’t as heavy and don’t take up as much room as snow chains
• Prices are fairly cheap compared to other solutions, around £50
• Maximum speed is as high as 50mph
• Don’t damage the road or your driveway as much as snow chains

Cons

• Need to be removed once you’re back on tarmac or they’ll wear quickly. Therefore also not as good for icy patches on tarmac
• Can tear and rip
• Don’t provide as much traction as snow chains

Snow Chains

Snow chains are chains that you can fit temporarily round the driven wheels on your vehicle. They provide a lot of grip by digging into the ice and snow. For quite severe weather or if you live in a climate with regular snow then they’re very useful to have.

Pros

• Nothing substitutes the effectiveness of chains, they’re great for heavy snow or if you get stuck
• Pretty indestructible, as long as you don’t run over the latches!

Cons

• Horrid to take on and off, it takes a lot of practice and isn’t easy with cold hands
• Lots of vibration in the car when travelling with them on
• They damage the road
• You’re not advised to travel at more than 30mph with them on
• Quite heavy and take up a fair amount of space

Winter tyres

Winter tyres have a different tread pattern to normal tyres and usually have wider grooves and narrow slits which give better grip. The material winter tyres are made is specially designed for cold weather too, so they don’t stiffen when it’s cold, like normal tyres do, which increased grip. You can either get the tyres changed on to your rim twice a year or get a set of spare rims and fit the winter tyres to these.

Pros

• Safer than regular tyres, thanks to shorter breaking distances and improved grip
• Less likely to get stuck in the snow than with normal tyres

Cons

• May be hard to justify the cost of the tyres.They aren’t cheap and you have to buy tyres for all four wheels, not just the driven ones.
• Cost of either getting the tyres fitted every year to your existing wheel rims, or the cost of buying another set of wheel rims
• They aren’t a substitute for snow chains

Verdict

What will work best for you really depends on where you’ll be driving. If you live in an area where there’s always snow on the ground then of course winter tyres and chains are a must. In that situation snow socks aren’t likely to be worth it, as although they generally provide slightly more grip than winter tyres, they aren’t as useful for really bad situations as snow chains are.

However if you live where it occasionally snows and there are sometime icy roads, of if you’re just driving to a ski resort, then winter tyres are probably not worth the cost. In that case we’d recommend snow chains and snow socks. Snow socks as they are so quick to put on and good for mild snow when you want a bit of added security, snow chains so that if if gets really bad you’ll still be ok.

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This was a guest post by James Hind, editor of carbuzz.co.uk, a new car reviews site. carbuzz helps you choose what new car to buy, with full guides to every new car on sale.