bigajadog:
What you’re asking simply doesn’t exist. Tires, like everything else in life, is about compromise.
Where do you live where you want good snow traction? I live in upstate NY (you know, that Austria-sized portion northwest of NYC) where the lake effect snowstorms can get quite bad, and the regular snowstorms are quite bad as well. For this, I outfit all of my vehicles with an extra set of rims mounted up with nice knobby studable snow tires… my 4x4 truck getting studs on its set because the ride quality is already crap so the road noise of studs is indiscernable.
I can tell you with great confidence that my old front-wheel drive 95 Toyota Corolla with its four snow shoes outfitted could barrel past any CR-V wearing some stupid “all weather” hoops on a snow-covered road. My rear-wheel drive Mercedes is also quite good at zooming about in the fury of old man winter, you just have to be a bit more mindful of the throttle when the rear breaks loose.
Now, that being said… snow tires suck at water evacuation. All those big chunky blocks of rubber don’t do much for allowing water to escape from the pressure brought on by the weight and speed of your vehicle.
If you really do live in a snowy area, get some dedicated snows, and a cheap set of steel rims to put them on to reduce seasonal swap cost.
As for an “80K” tire… yeah, that thing might last all the way to 2/32" tread by rolling for 80K in a lab, but such a claim is absolute crap.
You have a car that is worth approximately what? 8-10K? Was closer to 20K when it was new? Why on God’s green earth would you want $600 of rubber carrying that vehicle around for what is essentially 1/3 of the vehicle’s life in sun, rain, sleet, and snow? Are you that much of a tightwad?