snow tire season-Hankook IceBear Experience?

[2thdr]

The W300's are complete, unadulterated crap. I ran an e46 M3 with Dunlop Wintersport M3's that had better traction than the w300's on an xDrive 328. Forget them. Junk.

[TowX]

Ive run the IceBears for the past 4 winters on 3 different cars. Best value out there in my mind.

First ran them on my Audi allroad, loved the way they worked in all but the deepest snow.

Ran them for two years on my 528 but switched over to Dunlop M3 snows last winter. They're better in heavier snows and the 528 needs all the help it can get. But before I switched, I ran the IceBears into June that summer because I was too busy to swap wheels and tires on 3 cars (X5, 528 and wife's Explorer)

And for the past two winters on my '04 4.4 X5, I've put away the Sport 19 wheels and tires and run 18" IceBears. They've never failed me in any midwest snows. I've even had the race car trailer hooked up and driven 900 miles towing 5,000 lbs with the snows on and the tail of the X5 was rock steady.

So what are the pros and cons?
Pro:
Inexpensive
Very quiet, in fact they were quieter than the Dasmarais summer tires I used to run
Great in the wet and let's face it, we see more wet conditions in winter than heavy snow
High speed stability is fantastic. On my old allroad and the 528, I'd do road trips on dry winter roads and never had a moment where the tires felt squirmy even at speeds close to triple digits
Very good in snows up to 4 or 6 inches, still good above that

Cons
There are better snow tires for the heavy 12"+ snows, like the Dunlop M2 or M3
The Dunlops clean the slushy stuff out of the tread easier at highway speeds

But for me the IceBear is the best all around tire for our upper midwest winters, for highway trips, for occasional deep snow, and are fantastic in the dry and wet which is 75% of my winter driving.