I myself is a fan of dedicated winter tires and I am a strong believer that most all season tires get harder below 40 F degrees temp.
My Ex35 started to get tail happy this winter when roads were covered by 2" + of snow. I think I mentioned this incident before and never had this thing happened before. Even with snow mode ON , the grip of my EX35 is superb on a dedicated winter tires setup.
I finally found the issue. After searching for a new winter tire to buy for the next winter, I came across with a small information on Continental snow tires.
Continental tires has wear markers " D, W and S" printed on the corner tire tread.
Each letter represent the condition the tire can grip the road at it's optimum capability (D = Dry, W= Wet and S=Snow) Whenever each marking fades away or wear off, that means the tire is only good for whatever left or shows on the tire for that specific driving condition.
Continental states that their winter tire will diminish it's winter(snow) grip capability when the tread reaches half it's tread depth.
I now realized that my Michelin Xice2 is half or maybe a bit half past it's tread wear, and no longer at it's optimum winter/ice capabilities, thus my Ex35 becomes tail happy this winter.
So if you are in the market for a new snow tires, there are only few snow tires that has real snow rubber compound until to the last 2/32" of tread depth...
Some snow tires like my Xice2 only is capable for winter the first half of the tread.
Nokian I believe has a full snow tires compound until it gets bald!
