Hi Richard,

The thing is the Agilis 51's are "all seasons" not true snow tires. I
almost never drive my syncro in the winter so I never saw a need. The
few times I have had the syncro out in the snow shes been VERY sure
footed.

That said I think dedicated snows are a great choice if you do drive
in the winter. It made a huge difference on my old winter car (91'
Pontiac Firefly). But I'm not buying new tires for just one trip.

So assuming I don't have true snows are chains the way to go? How can
I tell in advance if a road will require chains? There are three
places I worried about:

1) Montana Route 89 into yellowstone (the north route into the park)
2) Idaho Routes 191, 20, 33, and 22 between Big Sky MT and Jackson.WY
3) Oregon Routes 140, 395, and 20 between southern OR and i84

Chris

On 11/19/05, Richard A Jones <jones@colorado.edu> wrote:
> Chris:
>
> Don't worry about chains on a syncro.  In Colorado the
> rules are "chains or adequate snow tires" and "all
> weather" on a 4x4 vehicle will be fine.  The syncro
> does great in snow--braking is the harder half.
>
> In the Rockies, it will snow all night and then be
> cloudless and sunny the next day.  Just don't drive
> at night in a storm.  This in contrast to the coast
> (Sierra Nevadas) where it can snow heavily and steady
> for 3-4 days....
>
>                        Richard A Jones
>                        Boulder, Colorado
>