Another option is to run four-season tires like the Michelin CrossClimate 2. Those are not as good as dedicated winters, but do have the mountain/snowflake symbol and can be left on year 'round. My daughter in AA takes that approach and seems happy with the compromise.
I am running Michelin crossclimates year round.
I ran the Continental Extreme Contact Force on my VA and it's a great endurance 200 tire.
Those ain't snow tires. Get some Michelin ice x 3
I’ve had pretty good luck with Yoko avid ascends.
The Rav4 with these tires did a fantastic job on snowy interstate, and through snow-covered Berkshire mountain uppy/downy roads with multiple inches of snow on them. My biggest complaint is the sensor warnings stopping me from being able to monitor AWD activity on the dash. Otherwise no complaints and significantly increased confidence in inclement winter weather.
I have them on my 23 Forester and wish I had went with a different tire but that's simply my personal situation. The CC2 isn't a bad tire by any means. I've drove with them in our last snow storm which ended up dumping 6 inches and they didn't lose traction unless I made it and even then they'd recover traction within 2 seconds if I wasn't hooning it. My main reason for wanting something like the Defender 2 series is thr mpg hit my forester took. I went from about 34 - 35 mpg down to barely able to sustain 30mpg and easily sitting between 28-29 mpg now.
They'll suck on hard packed snow and ice and anybody who says they are the equivalent to a snow tire is dead wrong. But don't take that as they are bad, they are still good, just not what people hype them up to be during the winter.
Almost did the same thing with my 992.2 GTS with the same tires. I was doing 10kph UNDER the speed limit since I was all over the fucking place. Horrible tire for the rain.
Whatever the repair costs add on a set of new Michelin pilot sport 4s as pirellis are god awful in the rain. Had my car hydroplane in 50 degree medium rain weather in P zeros.
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