LouNY
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2015
- Messages
- 13,981
- Location
- Greenwich, NY
- Tractor
- Branson 8050, IH 574, Oliver 1550 Diesel Utility (traded in on Branson) NH 8160. Kioti CK2620SECH
Lou, did you ever try siping your tires for snow work? You must get more snow than any of us.
No need to sipe with chains, and likely nothing works better than chains, including going into the woods.
Chains sure will scratch up pavement though. Are your farm roads gravel?
turf, hybrid, R4, R1 lot of options, wonder which works the best? Probably tracks...but not including them,
if you wanted the best possible snow traction, which tire would you choose? Probably well discussed in the Transportation
threads... We need a comparison test; I've seen the ones on dirt/turf but not snow.
I have had sipped tires on a couple of pickups they did work better but not as good as studded tires.
As far as chains I went with the studded Euro style several years back and there is no comparison,
they re a 10 fold increase in traction and have a very good ride quality. I don't see any pavement damage to speak off
from my chains or the tractors when they are chained up at the farm. With the Euro style the traction is good enough
that you are seldom spinning and chewing with them which is when they would mark up the pavement.
All of our driveways and farm roads are gravel, most of the town roads are paved now that we drive on.
When I take my tractor over to the farm it's on pavement for about 3 and 1/2 miles each way. The feed lot tractors
run almost 2 miles on pavement daily when chained for the feed lot fields. The Euro style seem to hold up to the road travel
better then ladder chains as well as riding good, we will run about 15 mph with chains on.
My self I have to have chains on my snow removal equipment because of the steepness of my driveway, 14-16 degrees of
slope (about 25%) it's easy to plow down without them but difficult to get back up without them.
In my opinion the best snow tires for tractors would likely be the hybrid or the turf patterns, I'm running R1's as they are not worn out.
My backup tractor is on almost worn out R1's but with the chains is doesn't matter.
I have never been impressed with tracks for snow and ice work on equipment, without ice caulks they are about like ice skates.