Tires DUNLOP or GENERAL TIRE

I have General Grabber AT2 on my XC70 ...I also recommend going with 16s, more sidewall means less likely to bend a wheel.

For a budget snow tire I have been using these now for 2 years and love them:

I have ~90,000 miles of winter driving under my belt, and will say that these Winter Sport 4D tires are probably the best that I've ever used.

I love my General Grabbers and AT2's. They are a little rough on the street but an awesome tire off-road. The AT2's get stuck in the mud very easily though. I've had the AT2's on my daily for 4 years now with little wear and I drive an average of 14,000 miles a year.

I live in Maine... as you can expect we get plenty of snow/ice. Never needed studded tires unless I was driving on a giant sheet of ice i.e. frozen lake. I run General Altimax Arctics on my 4Motion Passat, about $80/tire in 16" sizes.

I got 3500 out of a Q3 rear before I replaced it last week. Including a bunch of hooligan rear tire skids too. Im happy with mine.

They last about as long as my Power 3s used to, I have about 2000 miles on my rear and probably have another 1500 left before I start showing steel.

If I had to choose between the Kumho, the Dunlop and the Goodyear, I'd pick the Dunlop.

I have Dunlop Graspic DS-3s on my car in the winter and they perform quite well on dry and wet pavement. They are a bit more slippy and the feel is a bit more muddy

I had a Falken Ziex 512 tire explote on the highway so I switched to Dunlop Direzza DZ101s and it's probably the worst rain tire I've had, I'm spinning tires everywhere... straight line, turning, braking.