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Ive driven quite a bit in snowy weather and Ive always felt dedicated snow tires were a better investment than AWD.
The reasons include
1.) AWD with summer or low tread all season tires is sketchy, usually worse than snow tires.
2.) AWD usually costs a good bit more, and hits your fuel economy for the life of the vehicle.
3.) AWD is more expensive to maintain, sometimes absurdly like in a Jeep I had that cost $800 every 8k miles to keep its 3 differentials lubricated.
4.) AWD helps you go, but does not help you stop. Watch some youtube vids of cars crashing in the snow. Most of them are crashing due to loss of control caused by braking. Very few to none of them are crashing because they cant move forward. A lot of that is panic and poor driving technique. Dedicated snow tires actually help you stop better. AWD does help you turn better when on the gas though.
5.) You can buy cheap heavy rims for your snow tires for cheap, the heavier rims actually help the tires bite into the snow better.
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