Yokohama is one of the premier names in the world when it comes to tires. Yokohama Rubber Company was founded way back in 1917 as a joint venture and has since built a worldwide presence with US factories in Virginia and Mississippi. Yokohama has made a name for itself in motorsports with race-proven designs, Yokohama also has a full line of commercial tires along with their passenger car and light truck products.

The Avid Ascend GT offers a great value and performance in a premium all-season tire, with long wear, great road manners, low noise, a quiet, comfortable ride, dependable year-round traction, and precise handling. In a crowded field of performance-oriented all-season tires, it’s hard to be a standout…but the Avid Ascend GT does just that.

Features and Benefits

Let’s take a quick look at what makes the Yokohama Avid Ascend GT an exceptional tire in the all-season tire category:

• Innovative Orange Oil tread formulation enhances grip on both wet and dry pavement, with lower rolling resistance and sustainable materials – one of the most high-performance tread compounds in Yokohama company history.
• Deep circumferential and lateral grooves evacuate water from the contact patch to avoid hydroplaning.
• Adaptive 3D sipes boost tread rigidity for great handling as well as lending hundreds of extra biting edges to dig into snow, slush, and wet pavement.
• Solid, tapered center rib enhances straight-line stability and road manners as well as steering response.
• Multi-pitch tread blocks with staggered tread shapes, computer-tuned to help cancel frequencies and keep road noise low.
• Asymmetric tread pattern with separate zones for traction in wet or dry conditions.
• Outside Adaptive Shoulder Blocks that are designed to work with tread pitch to keep road noise down.
• Polyester body plies in the casing along with twin wide steel belts and a full-width nylon cap layer for stability and long wear.
• High silica content in tread formulation for strong grip year-round plus a longer tread life
• BluEarth design package means environmentally friendly materials and design that improve fuel efficiency and reduce environmental impact

Pros and Cons

Honestly, with a tire like the Avid Ascend GT, it can be hard to think of many cons. It delivers long wear with a 65,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty, consistent and dependable traction on wet or dry pavement, and touring-tire ride quality and low noise along with precise and predictable handling.

If there are any cons at all with this tire, it’d have to be its limited traction in winter conditions..something that’s pretty common to all-season tires in general since they’re not designed to perform as well in a few inches of snow as purpose-built winter tires. The Avid Ascend GT is also a bit pricier than much of the competition, but we tend to think of that as a you-get-what-you-pay-for proposition since the Avid Ascend GT truly delivers value for its price point.

SimpleTire’s view on Yokohama Avid Ascend GT tires

The Avid Ascend GT’s performance, traction, and road manners make it a great choice for sedans, minivans, and crossovers that need a comfortable touring tire, or for sporty sedans and coupes that could benefit from its sharp handling and steering response.

Yokohama has a well-deserved reputation for innovation and value over the years, and the Avid Ascend GT is the perfect heir to that legacy. It’s a tire that’s hard to touch in terms of performance, comfort, durability and dependability.

Vehicles the Yokohama Avid Ascend GT is commonly used on

The Avid Ascend GT, with its all-season tread and stellar handling and traction, would be a great fit on these vehicles:

• Ford Focus
• Chrysler Pacifica
• Honda Odyssey
• Nissan Sentra
• Toyota Camry
• Chevrolet Equinox
• Mazda 3
• Subaru Legacy
• Volkswagen Jetta
• Acura TSX
• Audi A4
• Kia Optima
• Hyundai Elantra