Vehicle tests
Testing is a serious topic for König.
Products and components are routine tested at different design and production stages to ensure the product reaches the desired specifications. This crucial process is mandatory to guarantee the functionalities and added-values are delivered at product level to end consumers. But that's not all.
In fact, snow chains are not indipendent objects but their functionality is exploited when applied on tires and on vehicles: the best fitment on those has to be guaranteed too.
When we speak about tires, their specs follow the vehicle requirements accordingly: thanks to the strict collaboration between Vehicle- and Tire-Development Teams new tire sizes and specs are released on the market. In order to cover the potential new needs, König deploys an extensive research and testing procedure to ensure the access to all new tire sizes available and run tests to guarantee the best fitment on the newer generation of tires.
Additionally König aims to provide the best fitment of snow chains on vehicles: this means that, apart from ensuring that the snow chain is properly fitting the tire, all vehicle specs and wheelhouse characteristics need to be taked in account.
This activity started becoming crucial in the early 2000s when more and more medium sized cars which were released with sporty tires as standard option which didn't allow the fitment of traditional snow chains at that time.
And that was just the beginning: the up-sizing of car and SUV wheels is a widespread trend now. Modern vehicles are in fact fitted with ever-larger wheels, both in terms of width and diameter, in order to guarantee increased safety, allow room for larger braking systems, and increase the possibilities for the end-user to customize their car, from tire size and wheel design perspective.
Additionally, modern suspension systems have led to a significant reduction of the wheelhouse clearance, considerably limiting the use of traditional snow chains.
With these forewords, it sounds logical how important it has become to collect precise and structured vehicle information and run tests on them to ensure König snow chains are compatible with the vehicle itself from compatibility to clearance perspective.
Thanks to this extensive testing program and collecting the useful feedback of the most important car manufacturers, over the years König has developed a product line dedicated to cars and SUVs that cannot be fitted with traditional snow chains due to their wheel systems.
These products have been created in response to specific problems and have been recommended according to the testing procedures on a wide range of vehicles.