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Originally Posted by floydarogers
The only requirement for tire manufacturers to put "M+S" on the tire (the marking for all-season) is that the tread have 25% open space. That's not very demanding. While all-seasons also have tread that stays "soft enough" for cold weather, the real name that should be used is "no-season", because they're not very good in any season.
IMO, you should get some performance snow tires like Michelin Pilot Alpine 3 or Blizzak LM26 (Pirelli, Dunlop and Continental and others also make performance snows.) Although not performing as well as summers, they are close to all-seasons, and the tread wear is sufficient for 3-4 years.
There are people that use all-seasons on their awd/'xi vehicles and do ok. But although you might get through some minor snow events, you will not be going very far in any icy conditions with all-seasons. And spinning out is gonna happen.
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And summer and winter tires are only 2 season tires, not 4 seasons. The fact is that you can get into a lot of trouble with summers on when temps drop suddenly. In the northeast that is very common. The all seasons can handle almost all situations unlike a summer tire when the temperature drops suddenly. Ice is always dangerous. Remember, even winter tires are only generating .28-.3 g in the snow. You always should drive carefully in bad weather.
Ideally you have 3 sets of tires (summers in the summer, all seasons for fall/early winter/early spring, and winters for the worst period of winter) but that's just crazy. All situations are compromises. I'd rather use high performance all seasons for the many days of the winter when the roads are clear and dry. Overall I see them as less of a compromise than summer/winter tires.