Dedicated winter tyres - all seasons or winters proper?

[Overall D]

My wife does about 10k miles a year commuting to work every morning. Couple of years ago we've changed summer tyres to all seasons on her car as during winter every now and then you'd get ice on the roads, especially early mornings and she's not the one to fearlessly opposite lock through the roundabouts Monte Carlo rally style on her way to work. These worked perfectly through winters but were a bit too soft in the summer making handling a bit mushy and also wearing very quickly, especially in those 30+ degree days.

We're looking to replace her car now and instead of going all-seasons I'm thinking a separate set of winter wheels would work a lot better. Storage space and changing them over is not an issue but I'm not sure what would work best for our winters, actual winter tyres or all-seasons. We're not far from York and while we get occasional snow and ice it's not unusual to have temps above 7 degrees in the midst of winter. Back when I used to live on the continent proper winter compound was de rigueur but here I suspect all seasons could be a better match for Nov-March period, or am I wrong? Would proper winter tyres be a compromise on dry warm winter roads & motorways - any thoughts and personal experience?

FWIW I've always been fine with just summers tyres on my cars over many years here but I've never had to get to work early in the morning 5 days a week whatever the conditions.

[CSR Performance]

When we were in a similar situation with an early morning commute involving rural A-roads we fitted Michelin Cross Climates. Never had any complaints or issues with them.

[Dave.]

Today's all seasons are much better than the previous generations.

[Sheepshanks]

Overall D said:

all seasons on her car

Which All Seasons and what car is it?

As others have said, we've run Michelin CrossClimates on a couple of cars in the family and no issues with wear, or any noticeable change in driving characteristics, although the cars aren't being pushed.

In fact before All Seasons became more common, we ran full winter Michelin Alpins on a Honda Jazz year round and they were fine - lasted twice as long as the Dunlop SP2030's the car came with from new.

From reading many comments, some people prefer Goodyear Vector's over CrossClimates.

[Basil Brush]

I used to do the swap from summers to winters but I now run Pirelli all seasons on my Touareg year round. You can tell the difference a bit in warm weather but the wear rate has been no worse.

[Lincsls1]

All season for me.

[littleredrooster]

Our daily driver has had all-seasons since we moved to Yorkshire (it's grim oop North...). First was a set of Cross Climates - great, with plenty of wear left after 30,000 miles but pothole damage on two seperate occasions necessitated a change to all four.

Next up (and current) is Goodyear Vector all-seasons which (IMO) are even better. Brilliant wet grip, cold/snow grip, excellent in standing water, still ~5mm tread after 25,000 miles and no problem in 36deg+ on various continental tours. Would definitely buy again.