# Do tire chains make a huge difference?



## jserr68594

I am curious if tire chains would help me much or if my added weight should be enough. I have a 2004 4x4 Rubicon 500 with a 60" Moose county plow. I have the stock tires with 90% tread. I plan to add about 200 pounds to the rear rack when plowing. I have yet to plow my drives with this as I just put this setup together over the summer. I am plowing two driveways that are about 1/4" long approximately as well as some sidewalks. What chains should I get if necessary as well as where is the best place to buy them?

Thanks in advance!


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## Holland

They do help. Back when i lived at the farm id use my fourwheeler to plow around our horse barn where the tractor wouldnt fit. The one back corner would drift terrible and where i pushed snow from that drift was down hill. It'd be alot of spinnng to get it done. Fit a set of chains to the rear and it helped quite a bit. If it got real bad id strap a couple weights to the rear rack, that helped too. But if your doing anything on concrete your gonna scratch it up pretty bad. Stick to a little added weight if your doing customers drives. If you even need that! 

Good luck!


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## 2COR517

Never plowed with a four wheeler, but chains make a huge difference on a pickup. And weight...


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## sublime68charge

jserr68594;1370719 said:


> I am curious if tire chains would help me much or if my added weight should be enough. I have a 2004 4x4 Rubicon 500 with a 60" Moose county plow. I have the stock tires with 90% tread. I plan to add about 200 pounds to the rear rack when plowing. I have yet to plow my drives with this as I just put this setup together over the summer. I am plowing two driveways that are about 1/4" long approximately as well as some sidewalks. What chains should I get if necessary as well as where is the best place to buy them?
> 
> Thanks in advance!


For where to get the chains. www.tirechains.com is a good place. what style is depends upon what you want them to due. as for how much they help, I have a 2002 Honda Foreman with 60" moose blade and putting chains on my stock tires with 30% tread got me around 20-30% more pushing force, adding weight to the rear rack was around 10-20% if your on pavement and dont want to leave marks when you start spining you'll have to stop and back up and try again.

I run the V-bar's on the front and just el-chepo light duty car tire chains "garage sale for $10" on the rear. after 2 years the el-chepo's where starting to get thin on the cross bars' so I took them off and put them on backwards so that the other side of the links would take the abuse and that got me 1 more winter out of them. then I had to change over to another set that I found on a garage sale for $5. Tire chains is always something I'm looking for at garage sales for cheap.

after plowing 5 years without them now I wont go a winter without having the chains on.
though I now run a summer mud set of tires and my old stock tires with chains for winter and just swap tires/rims in fall and spring

just my thoughts

sublime out.


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## the_experience

In light pushes and such the chains won't matter. When you'll see the difference is in the deep stuff or when you're really trying to stack the snow or bust some drifts or banks back. Then you'll see how great chains really are. I guess it depends on what you're going to be doing for drives, but I just ordered up a new set front and rear for my wheeler. They were pretty cheap too...$108 to my door for 4 chains with v-bars and 2 link spacing off eBay.


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## IPLOWSNO

i got chains for mine and i do push a fair amount of snow and never used them


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## sublime68charge

IPLOWSNO;1373752 said:


> i got chains for mine and i do push a fair amount of snow and never used them


that's cause if you used your chains you'd be breaking your blade 2x what you due now!!!

LOL
hope you had a good summer.

sublime out.


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## plowin-fire

I ran chains for 3 weeks before the cross bars started to let go. Traction was a little bit better but I can get along fine without scratching peoples drives and walks without them... Not worth it for me.


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## Antlerart06

the_experience;1372085 said:


> In light pushes and such the chains won't matter. When you'll see the difference is in the deep stuff or when you're really trying to stack the snow or bust some drifts or banks back. Then you'll see how great chains really are. I guess it depends on what you're going to be doing for drives, but I just ordered up a new set front and rear for my wheeler. They were pretty cheap too...$108 to my door for 4 chains with v-bars and 2 link spacing off eBay.


Deep snow works best under 6'' I wouldnt use them unless you pushing a gravel drive My sidewalk crew last yr had traction problems in the deep snow reason bought a set and may not use them again but if we get a deep snow They will be ready


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## IPLOWSNO

hahahah your right sublime hope you had a good one too, i got my first push out of the way yesterday,

6'' is all but she is in real good shape this year, sadly it was snowing and it made me want to build another roof lol


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## mercer_me

I have chains on the back tires of my 2004 Arctic Cat 500 4x4 and they make a huge difference. I wouldn't want to plow with an ATV with out them. Like others have said, adding weight helps to.


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## jserr68594

Thanks for the input everyone!


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