It seems kinda odd to me that this thread has gone three pages talking about MTs or ATs but only barely mentions any actual winter tires. Even if you get your MTs or ATs sipped, you're not going to get as huge improvement as you might want since normal rubber loses its grip in cold temps. That's what causes the "hockey puck" feeling of sliding around on the road. In my opinion, that kinda makes sipping normal tires a waste of money now that there are a few off road tires that are true winter tires, not just with a properly sipped tread but also made from a different rubber compound that has to meet a certain standards for traction when tested below zero.
The other thing is, there's a huge difference between driving off road in deep snow to driving on cold pavement covered in ice, fresh snow or a salty slush. There are a lot of MTs that can handle deep snow almost as well as mud as long as you're properly aired down, but as soon as you air back up for the drive home and hit the slick, cold pavement again they are as good as hockey pucks. hbkid22, it sounds like that's what you were trying to get at.
If you like Toyos, they just came out with the Open Country CT last fall, which is their new winter rated off road tire. I really haven't seen much about them yet though, so there's not much I can say.
Then there's Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs that have been around since about 2009 that were mentioned earlier, and since you're already familiar with them they're probably a good place to start looking. The guys up here that run the ice roads swear by them for their pickups, so that should tell you how great they are on snow and ice. There are several people on here that run them year round too (even in places that don't really get any snow), since they are good all around for off roading and have good road manners for use on a daily driver. The biggest complaints anyone seems to have with them is poor tread life (fairly common for winter tires since the softer rubber tends to wear quicker) and weak sidewalls.
Also, there are two other winter tires that came out last fall that I'm considering: Nitto Exo Grapplers and BF Goodrich KO2. They're both supposed to be as good as the Duratracs, plus have better sidewall strength and longer tread life. There are a couple other threads on each of these that people who started using them have said how they are so far, but hopefully someone will post some first hand feedback here for you.
One thing to note though, only the KO2s come in 37s right now, which is why I'll probably end up getting those. The Duratracs with a 315/75R17 are actually pretty close though, when you take into account that imperial sizes run noticeably smaller than their size that's basically the metric equivalent to a 37".
