Just got to try my Falken Eurowinter HS01 225/55 R18 102V tyres in some actual snow and ice. Yes, we have actual snow in the Midlands - not a huge amount, but enough for RWD cars to have trouble getting up and down hills and general traffic chaos. Mind you, we have general traffic chaos in the middle of the summer too - that's why I want to move to Scotland. Just spent nearly an hour getting a Jaguar XK8 (RWD auto) back down a hill it couldn't get up, which caused a bit of general chaos.
Falken's perform really well, but then I expected them to. Tried over enthusistic acceleration, cornering and braking (obviously where safe to do so!) and all good. In fact didn't feel much different to normal use without the snow. Wasn't really able to identify any difference with traction control on or off, or using the 4X4 50% front 50% rear lock facility. Obviously I can't compare this to what may have occured with the 'summer' Toyo R37s as I can't be arsed to change them all over to find out. There were other 4X4s about who all seemed to be coping ok, so maybe conditions not really severe enough. It's about 1oC today. I'm pretty sure my Smart Fortwo (rear wheel drive auto) would haved coped fine on its winter tyres (Bridgestone Blizzacks) in these conditions.
I'm going to get my re-furbished OEM alloys and Falkens re-balanced though as I can detect a very slight wobble which doesn't happen with the Toyos. When the wheel man fitted the Falkens they were quite out of balance, requiring rather a lot of weights. He recommended having them re-balanced after a month of use as he was of the opinion that they will 'settle down' after some use. The manufacturing accuracy of large diameter 4X4 tyres, with reletively high sidewalls is more difficult than low profile car tyres.
There are in fact yellow paint blobs on the lower, outer tyre wall put there by Falken, indicating the tyres lightest balance point, that are ideally positioned as near the valve as possible to minimize the amount of weights that'll be needed. There's also a red blob, that indicates the high point for both 'radial runout' and 'radial force variation'. This should also be positioned next to the valve, and takes priority over the yellow blob. If it's a steel wheel there is apparently sometimes a dimple in the outer rim indicating the 'low point' of the wheel, to which these paint blobs should be aligned. To be honest I don't entirely understand all of this but hopefully tyre fitters do. Always assuming the paint blobs are still there.
Apparently, if your tyres have any blue, green purple, white, pink or orange paint blobs then they're of no further use to anyone as they are 'mystery' dots put there for factory production reasons. Some tyre manufacturers don't put any paint blobs on their tyres at all. So I'm guessing in this case you have to hope for the best, put up with the resulting wobbles, or take the tyre off again and re-position it on the rim differently.