ATs wear quicker than all-seasons (~50,000 miles). MTs wear extremely quickly (~30,000 miles). Normal all-season tires generally wear at ~60,000 miles.
-edit- also, before buying studded tires, check to see if they're legal in your state/country, and make a note of the legality dates. Many times they're only legal from November through March (studded tires damage the road when the road is dry). Tire chains are temporary solutions, but are practically illegal in many states (can only be used if the chain never touches the road surface).
It's also a lot of fun to deal with a car that is borderline out of control in a more controlled environment.
> you back in line the soonest. You will notice that as soon
> as you give it gas, the spin will stop or slow down
> significantly.
That only helps with more common, oversteer situations (when the rear wheels are skidding). On the contrary, if you're experiencing an understeer (front wheels are skidding) applying more gas will only make matters worse. You want the front wheels to regain traction, and there are two ways to do so- countersteering and do nothing with accelerator. A tiny little bit of braking may be neccessary.
All this advice is rarely useful when driving a car (except in places where temperature is below freezing point) but it's extremely important when riding a motorcycle on every kind of terrain.
While it's true that braking can be very helpful, I'd caution against suggesting it because braking during a slide, even while it's understeer caused, can be very delicate and easy to overdo. And releasing the gas will quite often normalize the difference quite fast enough.
While this contributes to the effect, it's does not properly represent what's actually going on. Generally speaking, you want to perform action that normalizes the speed of the tires and the wheels, as you said, this is basically never breaking because wheels are good at slowing themselves down. If the slide is caused by slow tires, or if the tires have time to slow while the slide is happening (The most common case, and also the one that is caused by hitting the e-brake) Then indeed, as you said applying gas is the proper action. But compare this to a slide caused by wheel-spin due to too much gas, Any additional application of gas will just make the problem worse.
Having said that, if you do find yourself in a slide caused by too much gas, hitting the brakes will almost always make it worse, instead lightening up on the gas, and then slowly reapplying tends to be the most effective strategy.
http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/tire-test-all-se...
The following is not commentary on your situation, but tips to reduce chance of getting stuck:
1. I strongly recommend running a set of good snow tires, no matter whether you have an AWD Subaru or a 4x4 truck or a FWD Corolla. Yes, truck snow tires exist.
The reason is that the rubber compound is much much softer on these tires, and it stays soft when the temperatures drop. All-season tires are much harder in cold temperatures. The tread is also cut into much smaller blocks (known as siping), the edges of which help bite into the ice.
While ice is slippery no matter what, the difference in the grip level between a typical all season tire and a good snow tire is very significant. We are talking 3x the stopping distance. I've seen it on glare ice.
Now, if you really want to be protected, you must buy good studded snow tires. A set of Nokian Hakkapeliitta 7's will make ice seem almost like wet pavement. The amount of ice grip you have with those is unbelievable. The downside is the increased tire noise.
2. Practice controlling skids on ice or snow: practice countersteer, practice NOT hitting the brakes, practice using throttle.
If you can practice this to make it second nature, or at least not foreign, this can make the difference between you spinning and not.
Get out to a snowy parking lot, start turning, let off throttle, then yank the e-brake (and put it down right away). You should start experiencing a spin at this point. No matter what, train yourself to immediately countersteer, such that your front wheels are pointed to where you want the car to go and not where the car is facing.
Now, while countersteering every time, compare the following 3 situations after starting the spin:
A. Counterseteer & do nothing with brake or gas. Simply get your feet off the pedals.
B. Countersteer & hit the brakes.
C. Countersteer & apply gas.
You must actually experience each of these to believe it, but you will learn that it is "C", applying gas, which will get you back in line the soonest. You will notice that as soon as you give it gas, the spin will stop or slow down significantly. You will notice that if you hit the brakes, you spin much further than if you were to simply let go off all the controls.
This is counter-intuitive, but basically if you start spinning on ice on a straight road and you have a FWD/AWD car, applying some throttle will often stop your spin, whereas hitting the brakes almost guarantees a spin. It's worth practicing, if you can.
The reason has to do with weight transfer. Your car's traction at each end is determined by the amount of weight. When you accelerate, you decrease traction up front and you increase traction in the rear. Lifting off throttle increases front end traction and decreases rear end traction, a little. Hitting the brakes massively decreases rear end traction and massively increases front end bite.