Yokohama Avid Ascend Review: Does this tire fit your vehicle?

Welcome to my review of the Yokohama Avid Ascend! Without a doubt, this is one of the popular choices in Yokohama’s impressive range of all-season tires. The Avid Ascend is capable of excellent wet and dry performance. It is an all-season high-performance tire with the comfort and ride silence of a touring tire. This means a sticky set of rubber that won’t ruffle your feathers over bumpy roads.

But the Yokohama Avid Ascend is not just serious about performance. The touring DNA is also responsible for the excellent wear characteristics. If there’s a kink in the armor of the Yokohama Avid Ascend, it will have to be the price. It is a more expensive option and will cost upwards of $500 for a set of four tires.

Yokohama tires are not exactly aimed at the budget-conscious market. Even their basic sport touring tire will cost you more money. But in terms of performance, handling, high-speed stability, and all-weather traction, the Yokohama Avid Ascend can do it all.

What are the features of the Yokohama Avid Ascend?

The Yokohama Avid Ascend is constructed from a compound enriched with orange oil. This not makes the rubber more pliable and durable, but it lessens the rolling resistance of the tire. This means better gas mileage without sacrificing all-season traction.

But that’s just for starters. The tire is engineered with a carefully-designed tapered center rib. This enhances surface contact to enhance steering, handling, and vehicle stability. The treads are equipped with cross grooves to facilitate water evacuation. The same goes for the deep circumferential grooves that channels water away from the face of the tread. 

The Yokohama Avid Ascend also comes with adaptive 3D sipes. This feature increases the rigidity of the blocks to promote longer wear. The sipes are designed to retain their shape even as the tire wears out to consistently maintain a higher level of traction over wet or snowy roads.

The tire ensures a quiet and serene driving experience courtesy of the multi pitch tread design. The tread blocks are separated into different shapes and sizes to cancel out harmonic frequencies.

What is this tire for?

The Yokohama Avid Ascend is ideal for passenger cars, performance sedans, minivans, and small crossovers. Popular applications include the Volkswagen Jetta, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Chevrolet Cruze, Mazda 3, Honda Civic, and Mazda 6. The tire is also perfect for small crossoverssuch as the Ford Edge, Chevrolet Equinox, GMc Terrain, Jeep Cherokee, Nissan Rogue, and Hyundai Santa Fe.

What is the dry performance of the tire?

The Yokohama Avid Ascend offers solid levels of traction and grip in the dry. This is not surprising since we’re talking about an all-season performance tire. But oddly enough, I found the dry performance of the Yokohama Tornante to be a bit better than the Avid Ascend. Braking remained strong as the tires can grip the road with tenacity when properly warmed up. The steering feel and handling is also admirable on dry roads.

But if you want top-notch handling and grip from a stickier set of rubber, the Yokohama Avid Ascend might disappoint. It will take abrupt steering inputs and a heavy lead foot to coax the tires to break traction. But for faster cars, the tires may have a hard time to cope with the increased power, especially if fitted to rear-wheel drive vehicles with turbocharged or tuned engines.

But for normal day-to-day driving, this tire is more than enough for your needs.

How does the tire behave in the wet/snow?

The good news is the Yokohama Avid Ascend feels magnificent in the wet, but only if you’re driving at moderate highway speeds. If you apply more throttle input, the tires will squirm a bit to deliver the required amounts of traction. However, the tires remained calm even when driving on an overly wet highway.

Driving in the snow is a different matter altogether. Similar to other all-season tires, the Yokohama Avid Ascend is only good for very light snow and thin ice. Don’t expect the tires to remain capable over thick or dense snow. Even though it comes equipped with adaptive 3D sipes and a tapered center rib, this design is not intended to handle deep snow.

How about comfort and refinement?

These are the strongest attributes of the Yokohama Avid Ascend. It may have the sporty grip and handling of a summer tire, but it still has the capabilities of a touring tire. This means loads of comfort in both the city and highway. The tire will emit audible thumps when harassed by craters and potholes, but it does so without crashing or upsetting the composure of the vehicle.

In terms of refinement, the Yokohama Avid Ascend is a mixed bag. Yes, it rolls silently at slow or moderate speeds. But as the speed needle rises, the tires will begin to emit some tire roar that will get louder still if you don’t back off.

Will the Yokohama Avid Ascend last longer than other tires?

It will all depend on your driving habits. But for the record, Yokohama is offering the Avid Ascend with an exceptional treadwear warranty up to 85,000-miles. This speaks volumes about the wear characteristics of the Avid Ascend. The orange oil tie compound and optimized tread profile also ensures even tire wear.

You can see more Yokohama Avid Ascend Review here: videos created by Llantasonline

Should I buy this tire?

Yes, why not! But here lies the problem. The Yokohama Avid Ascend is not exactly a budget-friendly choice. It’s not as expensive as a set of ultra-high performance rubber, but it comes close depending on the size and rim diameter. If you’re tight on cash, other choices might offer better value.

With that being said, the Yokohama Avid Ascend is sold in 15” to 19” diameters. It remains a solid and safe choice for sporty sedans, compact cars, and crossover SUVs.