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Originally Posted by hhkb
Thank you for the response.
Can the stock tires handle below freezing temps? I’m a bit concerned because when I had my ND2 Miata I was driving 25mph and the car spun when taking a low speed corner.
I also plan on taking the car on long road trips and it needs to be prepared for inclement weather.
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No. The stock summer tires are not meant for even our mild winter temperatures. This isn't specific to the M3/M4, its the nature of performance summer tires. There are folk that will debate what the threshold is, but I've been driving our wet Portland roads with Summer-tire equipped cars for a long time and even rain handling degrades significantly as you approach 40 degrees. Babying the car when it's 38 degrees and raining with the summer tires on is boring and not worth the risk.
You can have your tires swapped at Discount tire or the dealership twice a year or you can grab a second set of wheels and do the swap that way yourself or through other means. It is possible to get 4 wheels with tires in the car with the seats down, but the effort of loading and unloading the wheels into the car is about 70% of the effort it takes to just do the wheel swap in the garage myself.
Which tires to run absolutely comes down to how much you're going to have to deal with snow (and mountains). Pirelli Sotozeros may be a better choice if you're going to go up into the mountains with snow than the Alpin 5s, though I'm basing that comment on other folks' experiences as my primary concern is the constant chilly wet roads in the metro area.