I have a new Honda Civic, and it’s time to think about snow tires here in wonderful Upstate NY. I was told once that front wheel drive cars should have 4 snow tires. However, once I got 4 for my previous car - a '95 VW Jetta - people looked at me like I was crazy. So what’s the real deal? Was the person who told me I needed 4 just trying to sell more tires or is that actually safer? Thanks!
You want all 4 always.
Unless you enjoy uncontrollable oversteer 
I wish I could edit.
I also want to point out that you need to buy snow tires of the same brand and type. Don’t mix’n match.
Even cheaper snow tires are better than All Seasons. For NY, get a good set on some steel rims and you should be golden.
Snow tires grip better in snow, all season tires grip better on wet/dry pavement. With snows only on the front your car will have a tendency to understeer on dry pavement and severly oversteer (think out of control pendulum) on snow. If you are transitioning from snow to clear pavement your cars handling will be totally unpredictable.
In Mass. it is illeagle for a tire shop to mount two snow tires on a car.
In short, get four snow tires.
Thanks for the info!
Now does anyone have any recommendations on tire brands and/or places to get tires?
Snow Tires depend on what you are going to use them for. and wheter they are dedicated winter tires, or all season.
If you are going to do serious snow driving, for a long time on deserted roads, studded tires are much better(some states they might not be legal I’ve heard because of road damage). When I was driving all over the rockies alone, at night, in winter, regardless of weatherm I used Nokian Hakkepolita with studs. They are by far the best snow tires I’ve ever used, I could drive on a sheet of ice like it was sandpaper. But they are damn expensive, if you only need something to give you a bit of extra confidence to get from home to work, it’s probably not required. Nokian creates some non-studded tires that are damn good too, but aren’t cheep either.
And , if you are going two sets of tires, one for winter and one for summer, then you might as well get something pretty good, cause they will last as long as the car(snow and ice don’t wear tires down much).
Lately due to money problems though I’ve just been using a decent M+S(all season mud and snow tire) the whole year, and not going to badly on the ice and snow in the mountains.
Tire rack has good information and ratings of tires, prices are also decent – http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=W&VT=C
A friend of mine summed up All Season tires well. He calls them All Season (except winter)…