How to fit snow chains

1. 01

   Step 1: Decide whether you actually need to fit them yet

   The first decision is timing, and it is the one people get wrong. Snow chains are fitted before the surface defeats you, never as a rescue once you are already stuck. The cue on a Himalayan winter road is simple: when the bitumen disappears under compacted snow, when the gradient kicks up toward a pass like Kunzum (4,551 m) or Taglang La (5,328 m), or when you feel the front tyres start to wash wide on a bend, that is the signal to pull over and chain up while you still have traction to reach a safe spot.

   Pick the spot deliberately. You want a flat, straight shoulder clear of blind corners, with enough room to walk around the car — not a slope where the vehicle can creep. On a part-time four-wheel-drive such as a Mahindra Thar, Toyota Fortuner or Scorpio-N, the chains go on the axle that actually drives the car. For most of these in low-range that is still principally the rear pair; fitting a single set to the driven axle is the standard approach, and it is the configuration TractionX chains are sized and sold for.

2. 02

   Step 2: Park, chock and lay the chains out flat

   Park square on the flattest ground you can find, put it in gear or Park, pull the handbrake hard and switch the engine off. Chock a tyre on the axle you are not chaining — a rock or a wheel chock behind a wheel — so the car cannot roll while you are kneeling beside it. This thirty-second habit is what separates a calm roadside fit from a dangerous one.

   Now lay the chains out before you touch the tyre. Pull each set from its bag and spread it flat on the snow beside the wheel it belongs to, completely untangled, so the chain forms a clean rectangle with no crossed links. Orient it with the smooth running face down against the snow and the diamond/mesh pattern up, and turn the tensioning mechanism — the bungee retainer on a manual MX chain, or the self-tensioning ring on an automatic AX chain — to the outboard side. Sorting the layout now means you are not fighting a knot with cold hands halfway through.

3. 03

   Step 3: Drape the chain over the top of the tyre

   Lift the laid-out chain by its top edge and hang it over the crown of the tyre like a saddle, so it drapes down the outer face and the inner face evenly. The inner connecting hook or cable should fall behind the wheel where you can reach it; the bulk of the chain covers the tread you can see. Take a second to centre it left-to-right so an equal amount of chain hangs front and rear — an off-centre drape is the usual reason a chain will not close up at the end.

   Push the inner portion as far down behind the tyre as it will go, tucking it toward the back of the contact patch. On most 4x4s there is enough clearance to do this by hand without moving the vehicle; if a deep arch or mud guard is in the way, you can roll forward or back half a wheel-turn — chock removed, then re-chocked — to expose the section you could not reach. Mesh-pattern chains like the TractionX range drape flatter and sit more squarely on a wide off-road tyre than old ladder-pattern chains, which is part of why they run with lower vibration once moving.

4. 04

   Step 4: Connect behind the wheel, then the outside

   Connecting always starts on the inside, where you cannot see and the cold bites hardest, so do it first while your hands still work. Reach behind the wheel, find the two ends of the inner connector — a hook-and-eye, a cam, or a cable clasp depending on the set — and join them so the rear half of the chain is closed into a loop behind the tyre. This is the single fiddliest moment of the whole job; a head-torch and a thin liner glove under your work glove make it far easier.

   With the inside closed, move to the front. Bring the two outer ends together across the visible face of the tyre and fasten the outer connector. Now walk the cross-members — the chain links that actually bite the snow — so they lie square across the tread rather than collecting on one shoulder. A chain that is connected but skewed will not tension evenly and will slap the arch; thirty seconds spent straightening it here saves a stop later.

5. 05

   Step 5: Tension the chain — automatic or manual

   A loose chain is a broken chain — and a damaged wheel arch. The goal is a chain pulled snug to the tyre with no large loops standing proud. On a manual TractionX MX140 / MX160 / MX180 you do this by hand: feed the tensioning strand through its keeper, pull out the slack, and hook it off, then fit the elastic retainer over the outer face to gather any remaining looseness. The TractionX Spiders extreme-cold bungee retaining system is designed exactly for this — it provides uniform multi-point tension that keeps the chain centred and stops it slipping toward the sidewall, and its cold-weather rubber keeps its stretch even when temperatures fall well below zero.

   An automatic TractionX AX200 / AX220 takes most of this away: it carries a self-tensioning ring that ratchets the chain tight for you. You connect it, leave a small defined amount of slack as instructed, and the mechanism draws the chain in over the first few metres of driving. Whichever type you run, the chains are ABS- and Traction-Control-compatible, so the car's safety systems keep working with the chains on — but the chain still has to be physically tight against the tyre for that to hold true.

6. 06

   Step 6: Drive a short distance, stop, and re-tension

   Chains bed in. After you have fitted both wheels, drive gently forward 20-50 metres on the snow and stop — the chain will have settled into the tread and will almost certainly be looser than it felt when you hooked it. This re-tension is not optional: pull the manual tensioning strand back through and re-hook it (re-seating the Spiders bungee as you go), or simply let the automatic AX ratchet ring gather the new slack. A chain re-tensioned once after the first short drive will then run for hours without drama.

   From here it is about discipline at the wheel. Keep your speed under the chain's rated ceiling — for most passenger and 4x4 snow chains that is in the region of 50 km/h, and slower is better on rough ice. Brake early and gently, avoid sharp steering inputs, and never spin the wheels to claw out of a hole, because wheelspin is what snaps cross-members and flogs the chain against the bodywork. Listen as you drive: a rhythmic light tick is normal; a heavy slapping sound means a chain has loosened or moved and you should stop and check it.

7. 07

   Step 7: Remove the chains once you are back on clear road

   Chains earn their keep on snow and ice and destroy themselves on clear tarmac — the hardened steel that grips ice has nothing to bite on bare asphalt, so it simply abrades and the ride turns harsh and noisy. The moment the road returns to continuous wet or dry bitumen, find a safe flat spot and take them off.

   Removal is the fit in reverse. Release the tensioner and the elastic retainer first, undo the outer connector across the front face, then reach behind the wheel and release the inner connector. Pull the chain rearward off the back of the tyre; you may need to roll the car forward half a turn to free the last section from under the contact patch. Shake the snow out, and before they go back in the bag let them dry — packing a wet chain promotes rust even on carburized alloy. Lay each set down flat and bag it untangled, so the next fit, very possibly in a blizzard at 4 a.m., starts from a clean layout rather than a frozen knot.

The fitting steps are the same for both; the difference is how you take up the slack. Manual MX chains are tensioned by hand with an elastic retainer; automatic AX chains carry a self-tensioning ring that does it for you as you roll. Both grip identically and both keep your ABS and traction control working.

All TractionX chains: carburized alloy steel HV 720–780 · TUV GS · ONORM V5117

Always match the chain to your exact tyre size before buying — see the full range and sizing on the snow chains collection.