I would not argue that fact but the original poster implied he did not have a lot of experience in the snow ... ability or not, experience counts.

In that same line of thought, I have driven rear wheel drive and front wheel drive vehicles extensively in the snow and if you gave me a choice, I would take an X5 over any of them , with or without snow tires ...but I just wanted the original poster to be aware that the wrong tires can lead to an elavated confidence when driving in poor weather.

If you are new to the vehicle and expect the X5 to make up for a lack of grip then you may be in for a rude awakening as evidenced by the handful of vehicles I see getting hauled out of the ditches or worse on the back road up to the resort every single day I drive it. Its all about confidence with the equipment you have.

Now if you truly prefer wide P-zero's in the snow over something more all season, I suspect your last name may be Grunholm and you may drive a rally car for a living

David