Do they complement each other or one is replacement for another?
Fitting winter tyres is a bit involved task. Snow chain fitting looks like easier option (they are cheaper than tyres).
Do you use them in UK?
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If you live in the bumpy bits of Switzerland your local garage stores a set of wheels for your car, and swops them over every 6 months. Here that would seem foolish and a pair of chains for the snow we get once a decade seems more sensible.
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But fit/remove chains when needed. Could be necessary after a short trip. Brother in the States used to fit them for the final part of the trip from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe (winter only of course)
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Except chains would have been useful for a couple of hours today and then have quickly worn out on the tarmac.
It's the same with studded tyres. We don't get enough of the stuff to make the options viable. So when we do get it we're stuffed!
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quickly worn out on the tarmac
And damaged the roads in the process! We are a country where we should put up with conditions when they infrequently go wrong. The best alternative are winter tyres but do we all want two sets of tyres? And how does that work for a company car that can be passed on?
... there are so many things that make the UK different. Weather and company cars.
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I don't think it's legal to use either chains or studded tyres on UK roads.
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Quite a few stretches of motorway in Spain have fixed signs that can be illuminated in bad weather stating only vehicles with snow-chains allowed; I think you would have a job convincing the police they you were OK with winter tyres.
Coming through Madrid last weekend the overhead matrix signs were flashing "Snow expected - don't travel without chains". I think they were panicing as there had been a couple of snarl-ups in the previous week following snow-storms
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I don't think if the circumstances dictated that their use would be taken to task.
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I have winter tyres and a company car in Germany. I have winter tyres fitted from Mid November to Mid April and summer tyres for the rest of the time. A second set of wheels/tyres is normally part of the leasing rate for a company car, though at my present company they were actually bought separately and I kept them for the new car.
Snow chains are not a replacement for winter tyres because, as the name suggests, winter tyres are specially designed for use in cold weather. In addition to different tread patterns, they use different rubber compounds as summer tyres do not grip well below around 7C. The difference is dramatic if you have never experienced it. With winter tyres I can happily drive both my (rwd) cars on surfaces so slippery I can barely stand on them. With summer tyres in similar circumstances I would be lucky to make it out of the underground car park.
I once took part in an advanced driving course in Austria where we tried out a mixture of fwd, rwd and 4wd cars on cold slippery surfaces with winter and summer tyres. It was possible to accelerate, brake and steer with winter tyres on surfaces where the summer tyres just simply lost grip at the slightest attempt at braking or changing direction, irrelevant of which wheels were driven. Subject to limits of course - winter tyres also obey the laws of physics!
Snow chains can only be used on deep snow, otherwise they wear out very quickly, damage the road surface and offer no additional grip. This also applies to tyre socks. I almost never need snow chains but always have them in the boot when I go skiing.
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Altough it may invalidate any insurance.
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Insurance can not be invalidated for using snow chains.
3rd party cover would remain, regardles of other possibilities!
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