LT1FUN

I had put it off for too long. I needed a set of new tires for my '88 as my old ones were not only riding on the wear-bars but the front passenger side tire ended up exploding and taking out the plastic cover on the inside of the front fendor a few weeks back. Thankfully, I wasn't going too fast at the time and managed to keep the car from spinning out of control.

I had been looking into getting a set of tires since I bought the car early this summer and had narrowed my choices down to Goodyear's Eagle F1 GS-D3 and a new company (new to me anyways ) Yokohama's Avid V4' series.

After a lot of research I ended up going with 2 pairs of Yokohama Avid V4's. (the picture only shows 1 pair because I bough the second pair the following week with my next paycheck)

I've been running them for the past two/three weeks. Though that may not seem like much time to give a proper review, these past two weeks have included everything from beautiful 16 degree sunny days, to torrential rain down pours and even 6-8cm of snow in frigid -8 degree wheather.

Yes, all this in the space of the past 2-3 weeks. (Courtesty of Canada's messed up climate )

Here's my review.

The first thing I noticed after taking the car out for its first test drive was the amazing amount of grip they offered through the bends. I found myself taking corners at much higher speeds than before. Alll without them showing any kind of protest (squeeling) like the BF goodrich I had before did.

Not only did the car stick a lot better around the corners but off the line there was also a noticible improvment in traction. Don't get me wrong, they're not MT/ET streets or anything but for an all season performance tire, I was pretty impressed.

After about 45 min on the freeway, the second thing I noticed was how QUITE and smooth the ride was. There was a definete decrease in road noise and the car really did feel a lot smoother. I remember glancing down at the speedo at one point and seeing that I'd hit 110mph but I'd never know it unless I had looked down at the speedo. The car was just so smooth and quite.

Needless to say, I was very impressed with these tires' dry wheather performance but how well would they fair in wet wheather conditions? I found that out the next day.

It was raining really bad all throughout the day. When I left for work in the morning I was pretty nervous at how these ties would react.

Maybe it was because I was used to the horrible handeling of my worn-out BF goodrich tires I had before. Or maybe it was because I was accustomed to the aweful handeling in-the-rain MT/Streets I run on my Firebird but for whatever reason I've never liked driving in the rain.

The next day, all that changed as I found myself for the first time, driving around in the rain without any fear of loosing control. These Yokohama's offered grip just as impressive in the rain as they did in the dry. I still cant believe how good they handle in the rain. It's feels like a whole other car now.

Lastly, the snow. Most of you probably don't care about this area of performance as you probably don't drive your Fbody in the winter but I'll post my experience for those that do. They're not purpose-built snow tires by any stretch of the imagination but they've been good enough to get me to/from work without ever getting stuck once. Last week we had a sudden snow-storm and with no snow machines or salt trucks anywhere in sight, a lot of people on my street found themselves getting stuck before even getting out of their own drivways I on the other hand, had no trouble at all. I still have to be very carefull in the snow, obviously, as these car's aren't exacly ment for snowy conditions and if I give the car anthing more than 1/4 throtle I can still swing out the back end REAL easily, but they do provide enough traction for me to move around and I'm happy enough with that !

All in all, I give these tires a 9.5 out of 10. Very impressive and I'd reccoment them to anyone looking for a high performance all season tire.

Here's a link to some reviews of this tire at tirerack. This website played a big role in my determining which tire to get.

CLICK HERE FOR TECHNICAL SPECS AND OTHER REVIEWS: - click on "Read all reviews for this tire" for more opinions.

skiwrench

Sorry to bring back a thread after 3 years...

Thanks for the info. I just picked up a set of these. I have the Yokohama AVID V4 now in 245/50/r16 but they are near the end of life. I cant wait to try the fresh set of V4S tires.

SR-71

Thanks for bringing it back.

Tire selection can get as personal as oil selection. I've been a hard-line advocate for the Bridgestone Potenza RE-930. Been running them very happily for years.

But now that my present set is getting worn down, and Bridgestone has discontinued the RE-930, I've got to make a new choice.

By your bringing this thread up again, it gave me something to look at. On Tire Rack there's a slightly higher-rated Bridgestone, but it's also an "Ultra Performance" tire, instead of simply "Performance," and it's higher priced accordingly. This Yokohama tire looks pretty impressive.

Brand loyalty is fine. But sometimes a guy's gotta look at something else. Thanks for bringing this thread back.

Guest

What Bridgestones? I hope not the RE750, those suck. I have them on my TA and I'm tempted to have a burnout contest with them to wear them out and replace them with something better... which I'm absolutely certain would be just about anything I can find.

I have some similarily sized Yokohama ES100's on my pickup truck (yea yea I know) and I love em. Finally wore them out after 29k miles of pure abuse. Great grip wet and dry, kept balance well, wore well, noise level was fine. They may ride a little rough, but I cant really pinpoint that for sure because I switched from cheap low speed rated 75 series tires to the ES100's in a 55 series on a larger wheel so I dont have a direct comparison to a similar sized tire in a different brand to judge that.

skiwrench

Just got my new set of avids installed. The weather here has been terrible recently, and there was a torrential downpour when I was leaving the tire place. My new tires just cut through all the water on the road, giving me amazing grip. I love it! I'll post more when I get some dry weather.

badazta87

iTrader: (1)

I am a firm believer in Yoks .. I have put them on every vehicle I've owned. I have convinced my whole family even the in-laws to run them on everything. Its such a nice balance between compound and durability. Plus there are made in the USA

GTA Sammy

iTrader: (1)

Love my Yokahama AVS ES 100's ...... way better than the Goodyear Gatorbacks I used to have!!!!! Rain or shine love em...... I don't know how long they'll last cause the compound is soft (it'll hold gravel and leave my thumb nail print in the blocks) but I'm not complaining.
The Gatorbacks lasted 20.000 KMS/ 12.000 miles and wore pretty evenly all the way around...... But as far as performance enthusiastic driving goes the ES 100's have impressed me so far!!!!!

http://www.yokohamatire.com/es100-1102.asp

By the way I love the look of them(tread pattern). Liked the gatorback tread pattern as well though

Fire"Dutch"Bird

iTrader: (1)

Anybody uses Nang-Kang tires?
They are the only ones I can get overhere for a decent price...

Tobias05

never even heard of them, but then again I'm a young ignorant yankee

...tires rock.

Fire"Dutch"Bird

iTrader: (1)

You can find a good picture of the Nankang EX500 on:
www.nankangtyres.com.au

LT1FUN

Wow, it only took almost 3 years for someone to add to this thread.

I guess now would be the time for me to update my review of these tires since I've been using them for so long now.

Both rear tires have about 10% tread left on them and have been that way for the past two month's now. Driving in the snow as you can imagine, has been pretty difficult at times, but thankfully I haven't been left stranded yet and since the worst part of winter is probably already behind us, I'll be safe holding off on buying a new set of tires at least until spring time. My front tires still look brand new with about 85% tread left on them. These Yokohama's have been the longest lasting tires I've ever run and I still highly recommend them to anyone looking for a set of performance all season tires.


The only reason why my back tires have worn through so much faster than the fronts is mainly because I drive my Iroc pretty hard and I'm always burning away literally 100's of miles of tread every time my buddies at work ask me to do some burnouts
Even still, the fact they've lasted as long as they have with my driving habits is a testament to how durable these tires really are.

However, when spring comes around, I'll probably be picking up a set of summer only tires. A set of tires that focus mainly on "dry-weather" performance more than anything else. Right now, I'm looking into Hoosiers to see what kind of racing tires they're offering...

Come next winter, I'll just slap on a set of snow tires out back and re-use the 2 Yokohama's I have right now, up front since they're still good.

HCR13

iTrader: (5)

I'm a believer in Yoko's now. I'm currently running the ES100s on my Trans Am and at first, I wasn't too impressed...and then I broke them in. Now they handle great and I agree that they hook great for street tires. I believe they are much better than the previous BF's I was running prior. And they have extremely sexy tire patterns...