When you talk of £500 expenditure…it doesn’t really compute unless you are investing in new wheels.
In my case, the car needed tyres, approx £80 a corner whether I got Summer tyres or All Seasons. The All Seasons will stay on permanently, although I wil refit the two good summers in the Spring simply as they still have plenty of life in them.
I suspect we may get a few thousand less miles out of them but seeing as All Seasons and even Winters only have a small performance drop in dry summer conditions compared to Summer tyres having a significant performance drop in cold winter conditions, they are a good choice. And Snow…well, summer tyres are practically useless whether they are fitted to a 2wd, a 4×4 or an all wheel drive/Haldex type system.
AndyL, pretty sure the modern Haldex/Faux 4×4’s are fine with slightly different tyre circumferences, as the diffs are all open, with the braking system used to slow down the wheels that are spinning and divert power to the wheels with grip. It may confuse the wheel speed sensors but you’d think the car would be clever enough to calibrate each wheel speed during normal driving.