I've seen that 1337ssei and his family use only 2 front winter tires and leave on their stock rear wheels. This helps save money because most of their cars share the same bolt pattern. In their garage is a pile of four 16" winter tires & wheels that they use for 2 cars. I know this has been discussed in this forum before, so I won't bring it up, but I'd like to know if you personally are convinced that all four snow tires are necessary, or are you just trying to preserve your rims? Either is fine. Just curious.

IMO if you have 2 cars and your sharing a set of front snow tires, the stock tires that are sitting for each vehicle arent getting the same wear as the ones that are on. You will always have an uneven set of tires.

I also like to know that all four tires are the same and that my rears will hold traction just as much as my fronts.

This is just my opinion and in no way intended to be taken as a proven fact. Thats just the way it makes sense to me.

In my opinion having a complete set of tires is more cost effective and safer. Knowing from experience that having crappy bald tires on the back makes driving in snow/slush/ice a nightmare. I prefer a directional tread tire and when you just have two of those for front(or rear) you can't rotate them.

And those poor GY'* were getting to the point that I didnt want to go another summer on them, they got pretty squirrely in heavy rains.

You bring up a couple of good points, but yeah 4 for me please.

I just purchased 4 of the winter directional tires that Ryan has. Come spring will be a summer set. not sure yet which ones I want but im sure ones that dont cost too much work good.

Most likely, they replace their tires individually as balding occurs. Is this not a good solution for winter driving? I used to work nearly 30 miles away, and one winter I drove on summer tires to work and back every time with no accident but lots of sliding. This may seem irresponsible at first, but it was so much fun. I think the Bonnevilles have naturally good traction for some reason because I never spun out, fishtailed, or anything.