Calgary winters are hard to predict.
There will be snow & ice, but nobody knows when, or how long it will last.
I used to have a Subaru WRX (all-wheel drive) and it was terrible on ice until I put on winter tires.
I never bothered with snow tires on the Chevy Avalanche, all-season radials & 4-wheel drive worked fine even in really nasty conditions. Really good traction control on that vehicle.
Now we have a Chev Traverse, still all-wheel drive, and early snows indicate it won't be all that the Avalanche was.
So it's somewhat vehicle dependent.
I'll bet the AV was most likely not AWD but a more traditional 4x4. AWD gived 4wheel drive via some form of clutches or coupling in the center which is reactive to road conditions and tire slip. A traditional 4x4 system locks the front and rear together solid so you really can't have one end slip without the other slipping, so the traction on one end keeps the other from slipping. It also makes a simple form of ABS, hard to get a whell on one end to lock since the others will force it to turn. GM only has one AWD transfer case and I think its only available on the Cadalic version of the AV which is why I beleive you have a more simple always locked in 4x4 system. You may have the push button switch on the dash with an auto setting but its simply a motor moving what would be a shift lever and still locking solid.
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