First year I've bought a dedicated winter tire, and my what a difference. To say there is an improvement over standard offroad tires is not doing these justice; I was amazed at just how much grip they give, even with one side of car on ice and the other on tarmac they were composed, reassuring and never stepped out of line. Deep snow, deep mud etc seem to fall off the tires, they self clean so well you are left with almost clean tread on each rotation. I was concerned as having no central bar all round that they would wear quick and be noisy, but were better than standard fit options from main dealer on my pathfinder. Just bought a new car, and these are first purchase for next winter, and I wouldn't consider "making do" with a normal tire again. 100% recommended, just make sure you buy them early, because they don't stay around for long. Leave me a set though ;-)