If you are like us at the Pansy Patrol, you will have a nice car (in my case my Miata), and a beater (in my case an old Honda CRX). The beater will of course become your dedicated winter car, for which you will of course get a set of dedicated snow tires. But that leaves the question of what tires to run on your other car in the winter.

I can definitely tell you what NOT to do. DO NOT use your dedicated summer tires. If you do, your experience will range from mediocre if it is cold and completely dry to a complete and utter disaster if there is ANY amount of snow or ice on the ground. I was going to drive my Miata last week while fixing the alternator on my CRX. That plan failed horribly. While I was able to extract my Miata from the snow on the side of my driveway, the half inch of snow still on my driveway rendered the Miata completely immobile. And I don’t just mean that I couldn’t get up the driveway. I mean that I literally could not make the car move AT ALL. Imagine you jacked up the driving wheels and then gave the car some gas. That is what it is like driving with summer tires in the snow. Actually, its probably even worse with the car not on jacks, for at least the car won’t slide backwards if there is an incline.

So what tires should you buy? There are 2 options: 1) snow tires or 2) all seasons. From a performance driving perspective, neither option is particularly enthralling. All seasons are designed to work in every condition in every season, and as a result are mediocre at everything. They are for someone who just wants their car to move forward and stop in time to not run a red light all year round, and for that purpose they are sufficient. But the tread design required to do different things (ie, move in snow v channel water) are incompatible, for the most part. That means that an all season cannot perform as well as a tire designed specifically for winter or summer driving.

Performance snow tires are also somewhat of a disappointment. They comprise ultimate snow traction in exchange for better dry performance. While certainly light years ahead of Blizzaks on dry pavement, performance is still marginal at best compared to a dedicated maximum performance summer tire in warmer weather. But, snow performance is also light years ahead of an all season, even if not quite up to a Blizzak.

So where does that leave you? Nowhere really. Performance driving in the winter just isn’t the same as performance driving in summer. Even when the road is dry and you know for sure there is no ice (which could quickly ruin your day), cold pavement just doesn’t offer the same levels of grip as warm pavement, and winter tires will only make up so much of that. As such, it is really a toss-up for me as to whether to get performance snow tires or all seasons.

I ended up getting a set of older Blizzak LM-22 performance snows simply because I found someone selling them mounted on rims for cheap. For me, that was the deciding factor. That said, I’d probably lean in the direction of the performance snow tire, as I’d rather have that extra margin of snow traction should I ever need it.