and I have pretty much always had to commute to my job 30, 40, 50+ miles year 'round. With that being said, I will tell you I have never been stuck in the snow out on the highway....driveways and parking lots, yes; highway, never. Of course discretion must be used before leaving the house, but the days I have missed can be counted on one hand. Had a few overnighters at a friends house who lived near work and got a motel a couple of times. Beats wreckin'! This the first winter with the 4x4 van below, never had one before.
I may sound like an old fashioned fuddy-duddy, but I always use dedicated radial snow tires. Not M+S. Oh, I've had them and some work OK, but it takes more ballast in the trunk to make them work well and that costs in gas mileage every day for five or six months of the year.
So, I try to mount a good set of open-tread lug-type snow tires on a separate set of wheels and bolt them on every October, take 'em off in April. For the car I liked Cooper Weathermasters. For my son's F-150 we got Cooper Discoverers. The E-250 had a set of Generals...snow tread. They were kinda wide so I had to carry more weight near the rear axle...250 lbs. or so. I usually had a 40# or 50# of salt or two, preferably in plastic, then whatever was handy, agricultural lime is cheap and can be used on the lawn or garden when the bags get weak. Left over Sak-crete works if you don't plan on using it for anything pretty next year. With the salt aboard, you always have something to get you off an ice patch, if necessary. A short handled shovel is good to have to spread the salt.
If I don't open the salt for snow and ice melt purposes, it goes back in next season. You might not need as much in the extended van, but 100-150# should be a minimum... along with the open-tread snows so you can cut down through the slop and snow to the pavement.
I wouldn't bother with the chains unless you get an extraordinary amount of ice where you are. They don't work that much better in inches of snow and slush that isn't packed and you shouldn't go more than 30 or so with conventional chains on (don't know about the automatic chains but it is just one more thing to keep working).
I've always believed chains would lure you into more trouble than they would get you out of. Now, we're not talking Canada or the Rocky Mountains here. In these places, all bets are off, I have no experience there.
Just my $.02
Last edited by MuddyAxles; 02-13-2007 at 10:58 AM.
Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I wanted to pitch in .02c re: snow handling with E350s.
I _strongly_ disagree with the posters claiming the E series is bad in snow. I bought mine (96 12 passenger van) to tow a racecar (as suggested by Clubwagon here). A van made a lot of sense for me - in addition to the race car, I ride motorcycles & ski.
SKI. Hmmm, worried about snow now....
....then I remembered something. I live in Colorado, ski most every weekend. There's a company here called CME - Colorado Mountain Express. Up until recently, they used E350s. Now, they have some Chevy AWD Express vans - but still, a lot of E350s. Their _business_ is driving in the snow. I called and asked them about it - "put good tires on, they're surprisingly *good*." Not like "they really suck, but you can make do," but more "you'll be shocked at how good they are."
I am shocked at how good it is. I've needed to chain up 3 times in the past 4 winters. Once, the snow was deep enough in my driveway that the door pushed about 8" of snow out of the way when I opened it. I'd already chained it in anticipation. Drove out, no problem. The next weekend, another storm put another 18" down - my neighborhood was a mess of frozen ruts. Needed the chains to ensure I did not get stuck in an icy hole. The third time, I was turning around in an off-camber turnaround at Vail Pass - they plow the road to a certain point, then plow a turnaround. You enter it downhill, turn left, do a fairly tight 180 (the turnaround gets smaller as the season goes on), and then drive back up and out. It is offcamber, was icy with ~12" new on top of it, about 6 trucks had been through before me.
I could not get out of that without chaining, even with studded snows.
So, I unloaded BOTH SNOWMOBILES, chained up and drove out.
IE, I tow two snowmobiles with it. The more it snows, the more likely I am to go. ~950# in sleds, ~800# trailer, and out of ~30 trips to the hills with the sleds in tow, I needed to chain up once. ONCE.
I do use good (studded) tires.
I do park downhill when I know it'll be deep.
I do use common sense - it is a 2wd open diff vehicle - but put it this way; I'm an avid skier, if it snows, I'm _going_, I work in the ski industry, I live in Colorado, I tow a trailer in the nastiest of weather, and I don't own a 4wd vehicle.
Sometimes, it limits me - one place I ride/ski has two parking choices - down low on a plowed, paved lot, or up ~3/4 mile, plowed, but unpaved. I park on the pavement. I _can_ get up to the upper lot, but why? Get there early, park as close to the snow as possible, only have to drive the sleds ~50' on pavement (and when it is good, the pavement is covered with snow).
So, yeah - I'm not buying the "bad in snow" argument. WORLDS better than a 2wd pickup. Surprisingly good. CME's livelihood depends on mobility in snowy/all weather - they use them. I can't really say my _livelihood_ depends on being able to get around - but I'm able to get around LONG after the company I work for thinks the roads are snowy enough to not go wherever I'm needed.
My current tires are wasted - Cooper Discoverer MS with worn out studs. We got almost 3' at my house two weeks ago, I was worried, but nope, no problem. Not as good as when they were new, but STILL no problem.
I have a 1-T 2003 Super Duty diesel E-350 and I'm curious if anyone has tried using any of the automatic tire chain systems with it, such as those manufactured by Onspot or others.
Onspot says that they can be used on vehicles as small as 1/2 ton pickups, so an E-350 chassis 'should' easily be fitted with them. Here in Onspot's photo gallery they feature a van that's of a very average size that's got them installed.
I live in an area where in wintertime one must commonly transition from bare roads to icy and snowy roads back and forth several times during a typical winter trip, and so the remote-actuation concept of these chains is quite appealing.
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