dangerous driving on the snow and ice

I've lived and driven in Montana all my life. When the opportunity came up to purchase a used Subaru Hybrid this last spring I jumped on the chance hoping to save myself a little bit of gas money as I drive across our large state quite often. Everything has worked just fine until this last significant snow storm, (it's only December, there are a few more months to go.)

This vehicle slips and slides all over the place. I have to drive on I-90 to get into work every morning and with the ice and snow this past week most of my drives have been between 30-40 mph because the 'AWD' system fishtails all over the pavement. I'm easily getting passed by FWD and 4WD vehicles going 50-60 mph and they aren't fishtailing at all. I must say as a Montanan and former Subaru owner I expected much more out of this Subaru than I've been given. What good is a vehicle with AWD if it can't even handle the worse weather we have.

I should have known better when the previous owners traded it in last March with a set of snow tires. I have the same snow tires on the vehicle now and it doesn't change a thing. The wheel base is short and there is too much torque going to the rear tires. The only other thing I could do would be to toss sand bags in the back but then there would be no room for the dog. Our local Subaru dealer may end up with this vehicle back on the lot in the spring when I trade it in for something with a longer wheel base-hybrid or not.