I have 18" winter tires in the OEM size on cheepo wheels. I like the Dunlop Sport M3s. They're excellent in the snow, and very stable and responsive at 90-100 mph.

I had Blizzak WS-50s on my Maxima SE and they were even better in the snow, but I thought they were too squirrely on dry roads at warmer temps (40deg+), and I never felt comfortable at higher speeds with them (70mph+).

These Dunlops (in the pic) are considered "Performance Winter", are speed-rated, and I can drive them more like my summer tires.

SofaKing

 

The WS-50's can be a bit scary on dry pavement...very easy to break loose...that is trade off I'm willing to make for "ultimate snow/ice performance.

I bought some cheap Mille Miglia 17" rims and they came mounted from Tire Rack...takes less than 45 minutes to do the swap.

 

Double-yups on the Blizzak WS-50 tires. They are Q-rated winter tires whose main purpose is snow and ice traction at the expense of performance. The LM-series of Blizzaks skews more in the perfomance direction on the tire continuum.

The Blizzies are very gummy tires which helps to give them their awesome snow and ice traction. But, as another poster pointed out, the higher the temps the "squishier" they feel, so there's no question you want to get them off the car once your area's snow season is over.

Last year I got stuck in about 6" on fresh snow for a couple of hours in the middle of an empty unplowed parking lot. You only have to do that once to know it's no fun. So this fall I shopped for winter tires.

The original Bridgestone EL42 tires on my '03 sedan were just about done (they had 39,000 on them, were probably good for another 3-4,000), and absolutely suck in the snow, so I bought four Blizzies to mount on my stock 6-spoke 17"wheels. I picked up four OEM 5-spoke 17" (from an MT sedan car) on eBay and will mount new summer or performance a/s tires on them when the time comes, most likely mid-to-end March.