A little bit of extra ground clearance and AWD make a huge difference in NW Ohio winters. My wife drives a 2014 Escape with 1.6L and AWD. It’s good up to about 8" of snow. Perfect for when I’m too lazy to clear our 100' long driveway.

I think they were talking about holes with no threads that are used to hold the rotor on. I had a 2002 Dodge Stratus that had threaded holes in the rotors that you could thread a bolt into to pop the rotor off the hub. That was a nice feature.