Without belaboring the point too much (as it has been beaten to death in every intelligent automotive forum in the world), there is no such thing as a good 'all season' tire. Any tire built for all seasons (assuming you mean 'four', which include snow in winter and heat in summer) is a compromise and will therefore be inherently poor at something because it is good at something else. Good treadwear and quiet on dry pavement will mean it must have lousy snow and ice traction. Great snow and ice traction brings noise and poor treadwear with it. No tire can do all these things. With that in mind, the best thing for you to do is to buy a second set of wheels and tires. It will surprise you how economical it can be, especially if you buy used ones. Even new ones (from someplace like, say, Tire Rack) will save you in the end if you figure that a good set of dedicated winter tires keeps you from spending your insurance deductible just once. Frankly, your request brings up yet another issue that I seldom consider, but it needs to be mentioned here. You do not want a staggered tire setup in snow! Wider tires tend to have less traction in snow and less traction means more likelihood of sliding that end of the car. Sliding the rear end of the car means you go into the weeds tail first. Not pretty. Buy good summer/3-season tires for your staggered wheels and get four same-sized, narrower, snows on their own wheels for when you need them.
Conti Extreme Contact. Acceptable in snow, great in rain, great in the dry. Noisy for some people. Unidirectional, so no rotating possible with staggered wheels unless you pull them from the rims. Good price (if they have your size.) BUT, there are better summer tires and much better winter tires. If you live someplace that has winter, get a set of snows on steel wheels and buy better summer tires. Here in VA it rarely snows, and I try not to drive when it does because even though the Contis do OK, the other drivers are hopeless idiots.
Thanks! I'll accept the monthly award (since I have generally posted essentially this same message somewhere about every year since 1996). Plus, if I can't top this in any given 12-month period, I'll quit ...
My 330Ci is not a daily driver and I don't plan on driving in fresh snow here in MA otherwise I would have 2 sets of wheels/tires to cover 4 seasons. With that being said, I can tell you that I am running Toyo Proxes 4's on my M68's and love them. They have excellent grip in dry and wet and are okay in light snow or slush. They have very stiff sidewalls which provide excellent and predictable cornering characteristics without sacrificing ride quality. They also have a rim guard built in to protect the rim from getting curbed. They seem to last well and are not too noisy. The Toyos simply blew away the Kuhmo ASX's that had been on the car when I got it. And they are not expensive at all. I got them for $456 including shipping for a staggered set from treadepot.com. The web site had a promo code on the home page with a $50 discount.They were at my house in 4 days. My friend wanted to replace his RFT on his E92 but the rears don't come in his size......
