Holy crap, this is excruciating. 4 pages of choosing tires, and still no resolution.
Here's how it should go:
I'm shopping for winter tires for my Venza. Should I go X-Ice, Blizzak, or Hakkapelita. Steelies, or alloys?
Honestly, for what you're going to pay at a dealer for a set of mediocre Firestones and some steelies that may or may not fit (I call
on that, I bet they're just trying to upsell), you can get a nice set of aftermarket alloys and Blizzaks or X-Ice from Costco.
As far as tire storage, well Kal Tire offers a tire storage service:
https://www.kaltire.com/en/tire-storage/As an aside, I'm springing for the 2012 Mazda3 16" rims after all. The seller accepted $150. The dealer has agreed to switch the Blizzaks onto the new rims for me, no charge, and he'll keep and re-use the new steelies he bought for me.
VMango would be proud of me. No winter steelies for this guy!