Overall, the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX stands out as a strong performer in its standard touring all season category, across multiple terrains and conditions, affirming its versatility and reliability as a premium option.
Let’s understand this tire in detail, starting with sizes and specs.
The Yokohama Avid Ascend LX comes in 15 to 18 inches wheels, with following specs.
- Speed ratings: T, H and 4 sizes also have V (which is unusual for a standard touring AS tire).
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth: 11/32″ on all.
- Weight range: 18 to 30 lbs.
- Treadwear warranty: 85k miles.
- UTQG rating: 600 to 800 A A.
Table of Contents
Overall Dry Performance
When evaluating the dry performance of tires, it’s essential to consider two crucial aspects: grip and handling.
Considering these here’s an in-depth analysis of Yokohama AVID Ascend LX as a case study.
Directional Grip
The concept of directional grip refers to a tire’s ability to maintain traction while moving straight. This ability is influenced by several factors including the tread design, material composition, and most importantly, the central footprint where the weight is most concentrated when the tire rolls directly forward.
And to put things simply here the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX performs admirably due to its rigid rubber composition and a densely structured central region.
The tire’s central ribs are continuous, ensuring uninterrupted contact with the road, while angular notches enhance longitudinal traction.
Lateral Grip
Lateral grip becomes critical during cornering, where a significant portion of the tire’s weight shifts to its shoulders, allowing the lugs to form a more robust contact with the pavement.
This interaction underscores the importance of the shoulder’s rubber contact area and the flexibility of the lugs or the overall tread flexibility.
Now here our boy the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX, with its minimalist shoulders featuring lateral grooves and siping, excels in maintaining excellent road contact, thereby delivering superior lateral grip.
This construction minimizes bending and results in a more direct steering response.
Steering Feedback
Among its competitors, the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX is notable for its quick average lap times, indicative of its superior handling.
This tire provides smooth navigation through tight turns and accurate cornering, aligning perfectly with the driver’s intentions. Although the steering feedback is relatively light, it remains consistent and responsive, particularly when transitioning from straight-line driving to turning.
This level of handling stems from the tire’s densely packed shoulders and reinforced underlying structure, which together balance steering and handling, ensuring excellent performance in the premium all-season category.
Overall Comfort Performance
Touring tires are primarily designed to offer a smooth and comfortable driving experience on well-maintained roads.
And let me tell you that you wont be disappointment with the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX performance here.
Let me start with the general comfort, i.e. how much road vibrations are felt.
On Road Vibrations
Now ride smoothness is closely linked to a tire’s ability to act as a secondary suspension system and to maintain overall ride stability.
And the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX, with its stiff rubber and spirally wound nylon cap ply, struggles slightly with absorbing large bumps.
However, the same construction enhances the tire’s stability, contributing to a smoother ride under normal conditions.
So overall I like the way the road connect with the road.
Noise Dampening Ability
In terms of noise, the AVID Ascend LX is designed to offer a very quiet ride, with noise levels typically non existent, almost, at slower speeds, presenting only as a subtle hum.
At highway speeds, this hum becomes a continuous background noise, which is also of very low decibels.
Overall the main or primary source of this noise is the tire’s voided central section, where air interacts with the walls, generating sound.
And the good things about our tire here is that its design includes packed shoulders with ridges between the grooves, which effectively reduce noise entry, thus maintaining a quieter ride overall.
Wet Traction
The Yokohama AVID Ascend LX, endowed with interlocking sipes intricately woven throughout its tread design, promises enhanced control and driving precision.
However, it encounters challenges under wet conditions, primarily due to its relatively stiffer rubber composition.
The essence of sipes lies in their ability to flex, contract, and expand seamlessly, acting as conduits that siphon water away from beneath the tire to maintain grip on slick surfaces.
The rigidity of the rubber in the Yokohama, however, restricts this flexibility, reducing the effectiveness of the sipes in wet environments.
Despite this shortfall in wet grip, the tire compensates with its exceptional wet steering response. This attribute shines through during lap tests, where the tire demonstrates notable handling capabilities.
Additionally, the tire excels in resisting hydroplaning—a critical feature for wet traction. This is facilitated by its design, which includes four wide longitudinal grooves linked by lateral tread voids, efficiently channeling water laterally away from the tread, enhancing both straight and curved aquaplaning speeds.
Thus, while it may lack somewhat in wet grip, its overall wet performance remains commendable.
Snow and Ice Performance
In the world of snow performance, the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX distinguishes itself among its peers in the highway all-season category.
It thrives in conditions of powdery, soft snow, showcasing superior performance in braking, acceleration, and handling. This prowess is attributed to its diverse shaped voids and strategic in-groove notches, which are adept at creating effective snow-to-snow contact.
The design is complemented by a narrower section width, an optimized contact patch, and a heavier build, which collectively aid in trapping snow within the grooves, thus establishing the crucial snow-to-snow contact needed for optimal winter traction.
Snowflakes, with their unique interlocking structures, mesh together to create increased friction, which is vital for maintaining traction in snowy conditions.
While the Yokohama tire excels on snow-covered roads, its performance on ice presents a moderate challenge.
And yes you guessed it right, it also lacks the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF) rating and does not feature a thermal adaptive rubber composition, which would perform better in temperatures below 44°F (7°C).
So yes, while its snow traction is robust, its ice handling capabilities remain only average.
Summing It All Up
In summary, the Yokohama AVID Ascend LX excels in various performance metrics, particularly in dry conditions where its rigid rubber composition and well-designed tread features offer excellent directional and lateral grip.
It provides a responsive steering feedback which complements its handling capabilities, enabling smooth navigation and precise cornering.
While the tire’s comfort levels are generally high, with effective noise dampening and stability under normal conditions, it slightly underperforms in absorbing large bumps.
In wet conditions, although it faces challenges in grip due to the stiffness of the rubber, it compensates with superior hydroplaning resistance and steering response.
Lastly, snow performance is robust, owing to the tire’s ability to foster effective snow-to-snow contact, although its ice traction is average due to the absence of a 3PMSF rating and thermal adaptive rubber.
