[why?]

Wherever you got that paragraph from, ignore that person and never go to that site again because it is bullshit. Just because a tire is studdable does not make it useless without studs. That is moronic to even think. General winter tires are studdable, yet also have great reviews on here from many people without studs. Studs are almost not necessary at all any more unless someone drives a lot of dirt or gravel roads.

Originally Posted by lamawithonel

There are three classes of winter tire: Studdable Snow, Studless Ice & Snow, and Performance Winter.

Studdable tires are the most extreme, able to get better traction on ice than even a summer tire can in the dry. But without studs, which are illegal in most our area, they are useless in almost all conditions-- dry snow might be OK.

Studless Ice & Snow tires are great all-around winter tires, working well on both snow and ice without studs, but they also give up a lot of dry/warm traction. I currently have a set of these, Michelin X-Ice Xi3s-- 'had them for two and half seasons now. I love them in the cold-wet, snow and Ice, but they really suck 95% of time around here. Be it dry or wet, when the temperature gets up around 35F or warmer they're quite a bit worse than the stock tires.

What I wish I had purchased are a good set of Performance Winter tires. Think of them as a winter-biased all-season tire. They do well on warm, dry surfaces, but their tread is designed to work well in snow and ice and the compounds are slightly biased to cold weather. On the downside, they don't do as well on snow or ice compared to the above classes and they wear out faster than all-seasons. But for our area, I think this is probably a good compromise.

From what I've read, the Pirelli Winter Sottozero Serie II are the best of the Winter Performance class. I've even heard they can have better dry traction than summer touring tires due to their soft compound. Once my tires wear out, these are what I plan to get.