Polaire STEEL GRIP ladder-track snow chains (pair) size 150

General features of Polaire's Steel Grip:

• These 9mm front-fixing chains are suitable for almost every vehicle, especially those which can't use traditional snowchains because there's not enough space behind the wheel, or because there's not enough space to fit them - you'll remember that to fit traditional chains you need to be able to push both your arms into the space between the wheelarch and the top of the wheel
• Polaire Steel Grip are unusually quick to fit because they can't get tangled, so no time is taken in getting them ready for fitting; if you’ve used traditional chains before you’ll know that untangling traditional chains often takes much longer than fitting them, however carefully you put them away in their box
• This latest version of Polaire Steel Grip has ice-breaking traction plates placed across the road contact surface, to improve grip when climbing or descending hills; there are also occasional diamond-shaped sections to improve lateral stability, especially important when cornering
• Once set for a particular wheel (which only takes a couple of minutes), Polaire Steel Grip are tensioned against the wheel by swinging a flip-over lever from one side to the other - they really are unusually quick and easy to fit!
• The same one-piece adapter fits all wheel bolt sizes from 17mm to 23mm, so (unlike competitor systems) there are no fiddly parts to assemble or to lose
• They have all necessary snowchain approvals, including TÜV, ÖNORM (Austria), B26 (France, snowchains compulsory) as well as various car manufacturer/OEM approvals

We think they're excellent.

More about Polaire's 'front-fixing' system:

Every ladder track/front-fixing chain system on the market, except for the Spikes-Spider system, works on the principle of fixing the chain to a single wheel bolt, and then bracing against this wheel bolt fixing so as to hold the chain against the road contact surface of the tyre. There's no need to grovel about behind the wheels, as is required for fitting the traditional type of diamond pattern chains. Front-fixing systems don't leave any chain behind the wheels (so nothing can get snagged), and the front-fixing chains can be pushed into what is often a tight space between the top of the wheel and the wheel arch. (For info, all Spikes-Spider systems fix to more than one wheel bolt - they have a patent on this - which is considered to be an even stronger fixing.)

Polaire’s GRIP and Steel Grip fixing system is better than other single-bolt fixing systems because:

• the same patented adapter fits all wheel bolt/wheel nut sizes from 17mm to 23mm
• the standard adapter, working together with a cord tensioning system, is suitable for approximately 95% of alloy rim shapes; shorter and longer adapters are available for the extremes. If we know about alloy rims that need extra adapters we'll tell you. (Note that other brands of front-fixing chains are supplied with a bag full of different bolts, spacers, and adapters, to take account of different wheel rim shapes; the Polaire system is, in contrast, relatively extremely easy to set up for first time use, because the cord bridges the gap between the adapter and the tensioning system.)
• the chains are held onto the wheel fixings with Dyneema cord – with a breaking strain in excess of 1 tonne!
• the Dyneema cord pulley system makes it relatively very easy to tighten the chain against the wheel
• each chain only needs to be tensioned the first time it's fitted - from then on you just flip a lever from one side to the other to lock it into place at the correct tension

FAQ - Polaire Steel Grip or Polaire GRIP?

• Both versions are suitable for all vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes (including the load)
• the GRIP is designed for snow but also to be used for short distances on tarmac; Steel Grips should be removed before driving on tarmac because they'll wear very quickly
• Both chains have the same excellent front-fixing system
• Both chains have very similar performance results (comparing GRIP with the latest version of Steel Grip that we're selling)
• Both chains have all necessary snowchain approvals

If you can't decide, we recommend that you choose the polyurethane GRIP, because of its ability to be used on tarmac - a very useful feature for typical UK winters. Polaire introduced the Steel Grip because the French market was slow to respond to the idea of 'plastic chains'. If you still can't decide, toss a coin (!) - we are confident that you won't be disappointed with either of these excellent chains.