I can't answer any of your questions, but I can give you my real world experience running XI2's, which seem to test very similar to the XI3's.
I also live in Colorado, in Bailey. I commute to Aurora daily. I had installed a new set of XI2's on my winter beater, a 94' AWD Legacy, mid-season last winter. I can say I was nothing but impressed with these tires in all conditions. They performed very well in all of the winter conditions I encountered, which was a lot last winter. I did not notice any ill behaviors under any conditions including slush. In addition, these tires were far superior in dry conditions to the previous winter tires I have used, Yokahama Ice Guard's, Nokian's and Blizzaks, sorry I do not remember the model of previous tires. They seem to wear pretty well too, I just sold the winter beater, the tires had about 6k miles on them, wear was negligible. I believe Michelin puts a 40k miles warranty on these.
In short, I will be purchasing winter tires for my new to me 05' FXT in the coming weeks. XI3's are at the top of my list and it will be hard for somebody to convince me to try something else.
I also live in Colorado, in Bailey. I commute to Aurora daily. I had installed a new set of XI2's on my winter beater, a 94' AWD Legacy, mid-season last winter. I can say I was nothing but impressed with these tires in all conditions. They performed very well in all of the winter conditions I encountered, which was a lot last winter. I did not notice any ill behaviors under any conditions including slush. In addition, these tires were far superior in dry conditions to the previous winter tires I have used, Yokahama Ice Guard's, Nokian's and Blizzaks, sorry I do not remember the model of previous tires. They seem to wear pretty well too, I just sold the winter beater, the tires had about 6k miles on them, wear was negligible. I believe Michelin puts a 40k miles warranty on these.
In short, I will be purchasing winter tires for my new to me 05' FXT in the coming weeks. XI3's are at the top of my list and it will be hard for somebody to convince me to try something else.
