It depends on a number of factors, including your local conditions, how much you drive, where you drive, etc.
I have a vehicle that gets driven perhaps once a week. No way in hell I’m putting the excellent winter-rated tires on that. It’s fine with less expensive ones. It never goes faster than 45 (and that’s pushing it) because it’s only for city driving. It almost never drives in the snow (because we get it so infrequently through a winter), so the winter rating is for a just-in-case. Even if it had to go in snow, I’ve never driven a vehicle like it in snow, and I’ve driven a LOT of vehicles in winters worse than I get now.
I’m also not paying $2000 for an extra set of wheels to swap out seasonally, or paying to have them remounted/rebalanced seasonally.
Not really.
It depends on a number of factors, including your local conditions, how much you drive, where you drive, etc.
I have a vehicle that gets driven perhaps once a week. No way in hell I’m putting the excellent winter-rated tires on that. It’s fine with less expensive ones. It never goes faster than 45 (and that’s pushing it) because it’s only for city driving. It almost never drives in the snow (because we get it so infrequently through a winter), so the winter rating is for a just-in-case. Even if it had to go in snow, I’ve never driven a vehicle like it in snow, and I’ve driven a LOT of vehicles in winters worse than I get now.
I’m also not paying $2000 for an extra set of wheels to swap out seasonally, or paying to have them remounted/rebalanced seasonally.
Everyone’s risk situation is different.
The issue here is that you are not just gambling with your own safety, you are gambling on everyone else’s safety as well.