Just ordered Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3

I've used Continental ExtremeContact DWS before, and I know they're great in snow, but they're a little mushy on dry and wet pavement, hopefully these are tighter, and are still good enough in snow.

The Contis are frigging GREAT in snow but I don't need "great." I just need "good enough to get home."

Anything is mushy compared to DWS's. If they are like my SuperSports on the Miata they will take some time to wear into a set before they tighten up a bit. Once they did.......WOW! Totally blew my Hankook RS-3's away on the autocross course. Keep us appraised as the A/S 3's are on my wish list for the Mazda3 as their treadwear rating is much better than the SuperSports and the SuperSports are not a functional tire in any snow.

The Conti DWS is actually far from the tightest tire I've had. I used to have Bridgestone Potenza G019 GRIDs that were quite a bit tighter handling in dry, decent in wet, not real bad in snow, though not as good as a DWS, but they were very heavy and knocked a couple of MPG off. I don't think Bridgestone makes them anymore, but they were a great tire for an 04 Mazda3 at the time.

I put the Conti ExtremeContacts on my Elantra Touring, and the first few hundred miles were absolutely frightening: the steering on that thing is loose enough as it is, the tires made it even worse until I adjusted and they wore in for about a thousand miles or so. After they settled down they were still a little slow to react to steering inputs, though it was still an Elantra Touring. There's consequences of all those voids that make it so great in snow and slush I guess. It's a great 4-season tire but you're making some tradeoffs to get that snow capability. And while it was handy, I don't need THAT much snow capability (I work from home if weather is imminent). Nor am I willing to do anything to dull the handling of my new toy. (no)