It depends on where you live as well as where you'll have to drive.
We have a set of those GoodYear Nordic sold at Canadian Tire on a Hyundai Elantra and I'll never buy another set. The car pulls slightly to the right and they definitely are not as good on ice or on dry pavement as the Toyo Observe GO2 + installed on the Corolla.
A winter tire review published on October 2006 rated the following tires in this order:
Nokian Hakkapeliitta RSI
Gislaved NordFrost 3
Yokohama Ice Guard IG 10
Toyo Observe GO2 +
Michelin X-Ice
Dunlop Graspic DS2
Pirelli Winter Carving
Goodyear Ultra Grip Ice (probably better quality than the Nordic)
Up here in the land of ice and snow, Edmonton, Alberta, hardly anyone changes to snow tires come late fall. We mostly use all-season radials and carry a shovel and carpet strips for emergency dig outs.
On a my previous Corolla, I once changed my almost new all-season tires for winter tires late in fall, streets were already snowy and icy. When I drove out from service, the difference in road handling was obvious. I remember trying to start off from a particular street corner with the all-season, lots of spinning. With the winter ones, almost no spinning, the car gradually took speed.
That USED to be a problem with rear-wheel drive, unless one put about 200 lbs of weight into the trunk. With FWD, and all that engine weight over the drive wheels, seldom a problem. If one does much rural driving or has to deal with suburban, back-road hills that aren't regularly ploughed or sanded, yeah, they could be need for snow tires. However, in 43 years of driving in Alberta, Canada, I have NEVER put on snow tires. Yeah, I've had to shovel every couple of years but have saved THOUSANDS in tire and labour costs.
No question, there IS some improvement. However, I find simply by adjusting my driving habits I've saved thousands of dollars by NOT buying snow tires. Similarly, it is stupid to have small deductibles in insurance policies. Far cheaper to run a $1000 deductible on your house and car policies. If you budget properly, having to pay that $1000 on rare occasions is no big deal. In the meantime you save thousands in insurance premiums.
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