Thanks for the reply and input from "up north". Not many posters from your area. As for studded tires, they are illegal (road damage) in the state of Pennsylvania as in many other states.

Pennsylvania is not flat. Winter normally does not bring consistent sunshine. Temperatures frequent break the freezing mark during the daylight and then drop below this mark at night. The snow is known to transform and roads that are cleared after snowfalls, can ice up (black ice) during the night. Or, the roads are not cleared immediately after the snowfall and traffic will pack (and rut) the snow down into a hard base that needs warmth from sunshine to melt and breakup. Then there is my personal recreational activity of nordic skiing. There is a lot more snow around these areas than in the cities you have heard of. Some of the nordic ski areas are "off the beaten path" and snow tires have saved my skin more than once.

My biggest grip about snow tires is the treadwear. I may only mount snowtires on my vehicle 3-4 months a year and the tires are wornout during the 3rd season. Is it possible to find tires suitable for winter conditions that provide more than adequate treadwear? Can the Nokian WR tires fit this request?

The Nokian WR tires are one of the few "all-season" tires to carry the severe service emblem of a peaked mountain wth a snowflake.

2005 AWD Escape Hybrid
Best Interstate tank trip MPG 39.02 (scangauge II) for 402 miles on I-70, 10.3 gallons used over mostly flat terrain.

Best Interstate tank trip E30 MPG 34.6 for 271 miles along I-80 in Indiana and Ohio.

Best multiple road tank trip E30 MPG 36.2 for 202 miles in Southwestern Pa.

I suspect what most of us are using up here is fairly hard compound "All Season" tires with studs.....and so our tread last longer. I can run them on my truck for two seasons (an F-250/460) and then have the tires restudded. After two more seasons, there still is quite a bit of tread, but the studs are shot and there is not enough meat to redrill them for new studs.

The thing about road damage is for real. It eats the roads here....you wouldn't believe how rutted they get in just two or three seasons, but so much of the state/city are mountainous while other parts are flat. I have one friend that, for most of the winter, has to start out with chains on their studded snow tires to get down to some of the main roads, then stop and pull the chains, drive on......reverse of the procedure to get home.....MOST days during the winter. On the other hand, they're a third of the way up a mountainside with few neighbors.

There are some very soft compounds that stick very well in winter, but they go away pretty fast.....especially if they're run on bare pavement a lot, and especially if they get run much in the heat.

I know the conditions you're talking about....we get very similar things, but probably for a few more months each year than Pa. I suspect my Conti's will last many years at the rate they're getting used (about 5 K a year), and I can't WAIT each spring to get the studs off.

Since we change them every winter, the spare wheels make sense, and it lets me wait as long as is reasonable to switch. Like everywhere else, the first day it's bad the tire shops are all slammed for a week. Mounted, balanced, so I switch them at home. If I had a long nice stretch, I could switch them back out. Hasn't happened yet, but I've only been here 20 years.....

Your Friend should get a snowmobile!
And leave his car at the park-n-ride!

I always thought they were nuts. They had a long highway commute to the far side of town after that ride down out of their "neighborhood". Anchorage is more varied than most......much of it is at sealevel, but there are a fair number of folks that live at about 2000 feet.....and the effects of elevation are more pronounced here.....we have glaciers at less than 2000 feet. For all of that, when I was single and living close to work, and it was work where it was not critical if I was there at a certain time, I had a FWD Honda Civic, and I ran summer tires all the time. I actually enjoyed the slides, and the Honda felt light enough that I could always put my foot out and stop it in the winter (ah....just kidding, but close). When I wound up having to get on the highway (not an Interstate quality, but a two lane with curves) I went to studs, and I wouldn't dream of taking the truck onto anything hilly without studs in the winter. There really are a lot of factors in making the decision.

I think you're right to advise BillyK to try it with the stock tires. The Ford does very well......we just get that handful of days where it is bizarely slick. I've watched people slide at 2 miles per hour and have no control, and no ability to stop if they were on a slope (and not much of a slope). One spring a friends truck parked in our driveway while we were all in Mexico, when the breeze changed, so to speak, slid down the drive and out into the cul de sac....completely out of the drive, all on its own. Sitting on ice, and the air warmed up. Where he is in Pa may or may not get that kind of stuff, but it does sound like the ground gets good and cold, and then they get warm air, and those are the days that I think create slick days.

With studs on, you really can drive an AWD Escape almost without concern for the conditions. It would be my go to car in bad conditions unless I thought the snow would be high enough to come over the hood, and then it would have to be the truck. The car really does quite well.