Yokohama Avid Touring S Review: A Touring Tire Designed for All-Season Driving

The Avis Touring S is Yokohama´s standard touring all-season tire developed for the drivers of coupes, sedans and minivans. It was designed to combine ride quality, smooth handling, durability and traction in any season, including in light snow.

If there’s one thing I noticed about cheap tires, it’s they often come with glaring compromises. Sure, you can pay less than $250 for a set of cheap tires, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you got excellent value. This is where the Yokohama Avis Touring S shines the most. It won’t burn a hole in your wallet and it won’t affect the noise, vibration, and harshness in your ride.

The Yokohama Avid Touring S is a touring tire designed for all-season driving. It’s a solid choice for compact cars, small hatchbacks, family sedans, small crossovers, and minivans. You are probably familiar with Yokohama’s Orange Oil-infused tires that offer lower rolling resistance and stronger performance in wet and cold weather. Sadly, Yokohama decided to use a different compound for the Avid Touring S.

But this doesn’t mean the Yokohama Avid Touring S is inferior. In fact, it is one of the best touring tires at this price range. In this review, you’ll find out why the Avid Touring S is one of the best Yokohama tires that money can buy. 

How good is the Yokohama Avid Touring S?

Like I said before, it’s definitely one of the best. There are two things lacking in the Yokohama Avid Touring S: good looks and sporty performance. This is not a sporty tire, and I want to make that clear from the beginning. This is not the tire for high-powered sports sedans, sports coupes, or sports cars. It is not a tire that delivers sporty handling as well.

The Yokohama Avid Touring S is the synergy between a touring tire and a performance tire, but with particular emphasis on the touring aspect. It doesn’t offer spirited handling but it grips the road with tenacity, and that’s important in a touring tire.

But in today’s value-conscious world, the thing that stands out with this tire is the price. It feels like a premium tire without burning a hole in your wallet. How much, you ask? A basic set of Yokohama Avid Touring S starts at around $240. Larger sizes will cost a bit more, but you’ll definitely pay less compared to a similar set from Bridgestone or Michelin.

What are the features of the Yokohama Avid Touring S?

In order to provide a stable and comfortable ride, the Yokohama Avid Touring S is equipped with a tapered rubber insert to better absorb bumps and vibration. Instead of using Orange Oil, Yokohama developed a unique tri-plex rubber compound that enhances traction while reducing wear.

This tire also comes with four circumferential grooves with tapered rain channels. This feature optimizes traction in wet roads by dispersing water more effectively. The tire is also adorned with cross-traction sipes to create more biting edges in the contact patch. This feature improves grip, stability, and steering feel in wet and snowy conditions.

The Yokohama Avid Touring S comes with a unique twin-rail stability center rib. This feature enables the tire to deliver a more accurate steering feel and better high-speed stability. The shoulders of the tire come with variable tread blocks with extra sipes to cancel out road noise and tire roar.

How does it perform in dry and wet roads?

Measuring the performance of a tire is not an easy feat. You need to have benchmarks to come up with the results. If you judge the Yokohama Avid Touring S based on the performance of a sporty tire, it will fail miserably. But if you compare it to other cheap touring tires, it stands out with nary a complaint.

Dry traction is higher than average. The Yokohama Avid Touring S will allow you to drive more aggressively. But if you push it, you’ll feel the lack of traction and grip. You’ll feel this as you approach a winding corner at higher speeds. Drive sedately and you’ll be rewarded with a smooth and stable ride. This tire doesn’t want to be pushed too hard in the dry pavement.

In the wet, the Yokohama Avid Touring S is a revelation. It feels like a performance tire on slippery and drenched roads. You can drive a bit more aggressively without unsettling the grip of the tires. You can also brake later without inducing a heart attack. I’m not saying you should drive irresponsibly in the rain, but it’s good to know the Yokohama Avid Touring S can handle anything from a light drizzle to heavy rain.

Is it good for snowy or icy roads?

Not quite. All-season touring tires are not known for their cold-weather capabilities. The Yokohama Avid Touring S can only handle light snow. Nothing more and nothing less. If cold weather driving (without snow) is your concern, the tires are more than willing to handle the job. But then again, colder temperatures are better tackled with a set of snow tires.

Is it quiet and comfortable?

Comfort and silence are the strongest attributes of the Yokohama Avid Touring S. This makes it ideal for the daily commute. The tires have a way of silencing all the nasty humps and bumps while remaining unperturbed by rougher patches of tarmac.

Road silence is also excellent, although the tire roar is still there as you speed up the vehicle. But it’s not what you would call annoying or disconcerting, and you’ll only hear it at higher than average speeds. But at slow to medium speeds, the tires are as quiet as a nun.

You can see more Yokohama Avid Touring S Review here: videos created by Suburban Tire Auto Repair Centers

Should I buy the Yokohama Avid Touring S?

Yes, of course! If your vehicle requires a new set of all-season touring tires, take a closer look at the Yokohama Avid Touring S. And in order to sweeten the deal, Yokohama is offering the Avid Touring S with a 65,000-mile limited warranty.