So overall both standard touring Yokohama Avid Ascend LX and Goodyear Assurance MaxLife tires come with a unique balance of characteristics, making them reliable in a lot of performance metrics. Let’s take a look at them all.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaway
So overall it all comes down to this. The Assurance MaxLife is better at:
- Dry Grip, Handling, and Steering Response: Offers more responsive and stable steering, along with shorter stopping distances.
- Wet Performance: Superior in both hydroplaning resistance and wet grip, thanks to its efficient tread design and multi-directional sipes.
- Noise Reduction: Minimizes echoing and resonance, leading to a quieter driving experience.
- Wear Resistance: Thanks to its stiffer rubber composition and greater tread depth.
- Fuel Efficiency: As shown by its slightly better mpg readings on my tests.
Detailed discussion of Goodyear’s tire: https://tiredriver.com/goodyear-assurance-maxlife-review/
On the other hand, the Yokohama Avid Ascend LX has the upper hand in terms of:
- Winter Performance: Performs better in light snow conditions, with snow-optimized in-groove notches for better snow ejection and traction.
- Impact Comfort: Offers a smoother ride over road imperfections due to its softer rubber composition.
Sizes Info
| Specs | Yokohama LX | Goodyear MaxLife |
|---|---|---|
| Wheel Size | 15 to 18 inches | 15 to 20 inches |
| Speed Ratings | T, H, and some V | H and V |
| Load Ratings | SL and XL | SL and XL |
| Tread Depth | 11/32″ | 11 to 12/32″ |
| Weight Range | 18 to 30 lbs | 20 to 36 lbs |
| Warranty | 85k miles | 85k miles |
| UTQG Rating | 600 to 800 A A | 820 A B |
Side Note: Both of these tires are rated in my list of top standard touring tires. Want to check out “THE LIST”? Here you go: https://tiredriver.com/best-standard-touring-all-season-tires/
Overall Dry Performance
The three key components of dry performance are dry grip, handling, and steering response, and I intend to examine each one individually.
Directional Grip
The concept of “linear grip” refers to the traction a tire maintains with the road during straight-line movements, such as driving on highways. This parameter is a key indicator of a tire’s braking performance.
In this comparison, the Goodyear Assurance MaxLife demonstrates superior performance, showcasing more than 3.5 feet shorter stopping distances on my averaged 60 to 0 mph tests comparatively.
This enhanced performance can be attributed to its design, which includes more robust central ribs supported by a robust foundation.
This structure basically offers a more responsive on-center feel, while with more effective in-groove notches you get a stronger bite too.
Overall Handling
When analyzing the dynamics of cornering, it’s important to consider three key stages:
- Entry Phase: This is the initial approach to the turn, where the vehicle typically slows down. So here braking performance matters a lot.
- Mid-Cornering: This is right in the middle of the turn, where lateral traction and steering responsiveness gets checked.
- Exit Phase: This is the post cornering phase, where tires have to get straight without slipping. Here, again the steering feedback performance gets tested.
Having said that, the Goodyear Maxlife, providing superior performance in all these phases takes the lead, showcasing more than a second faster dry handling times on my lap tests On average).
With faster slowing-down/braking, the tire reaches the corner quicker, while its more responsive steering gives you a better idea about under and oversteering limits.
Moreover, its steering also feels more stable post-cornering giving you a heavier, more planted feel unlike its counterpart.
Speaking of which, the Yokohama Avid Ascend LX although delivers a good enough mid-cornering feedback, falls short primarily due to its less effective on-center feel.
I mean its hard to guess with this tire, when to start accelerating once you get out of the corner. And this delays the acceleration process adding to its overall handling lap times.
Wet Performance
The success of a tire on slick surfaces is all about its capacity to shed water from its tread, shining a light on two key areas of performance: wet traction and hydroplaning resistance. Let me analyze each aspect thoroughly.
Hydroplaning Resistance
Hydro or aquaplaning occurs when a layer of water builds up between the tire tread and the road surface, leading to a loss of traction and causing the tire to float.
And the key to preventing this is efficient water evacuation from the tread by grooves.
In other words, how quickly grooves take out water determine the overall resistance to hydroplaning (for the most part).
Now out of both boys, the Goodyear Assurance MaxLife excels in this aspect. Simply put, the tire comes with a more voided up tread pattern and a relatively deeper tread depth.
These characteristics enable better water expulsion through the grooves, allowing for faster float speeds (the max a tire can roll over watery surface, without losing contact).
Float speeds are the direct measure of aquaplaning resistance.
Word of wisdom: Your first step in choosing an all-season tire should be a visit to my main page: https://tiredriver.com/all-season-tires/
Wet Grip
Now most of the water goes out by grooves (like I mentioned above), but there’s still some left behind causing slippage. And that’s where sipes provide invaluable.
These sipes are in charge of clearing that remaining moisture and they work by flexing, sucking up water particles in their slits and later spraying them out.
This way they clear up the road, drying it out relatively, so the rubber/biters can grip on the surface properly.
And here, the Goodyear Maxlife again takes the upper hand, with its more effective sipes that run in multiple directions (even though its only by a small margin).
For instance, the tread features “F-shaped” sipes on the shoulders that are oriented both laterally and longitudinally. This multi-directional sipe arrangement ensures enhanced wet grip from various angles.
And besides, since its grooves take out more water in the first place, its sipes don’t have as much burden (comparatively) to begin with.
So in a way, Goodyear’s superior resistance to hydroplaning also indirectly helps with its overall wet traction too.
In contrast, the Yokohama Avid Ascend LX primarily uses linear sipes arranged laterally. While these sipes provide adequate wet braking performance, they tend to become less effective during cornering, which causes it to lack behind on wet laps (during tests).
Wear Resistance
When assessing the longevity of tires, it’s important to consider factors like tread depth, structural weight, and rubber composition.
In this comparison, the Goodyear Assurance MaxLife slightly edges out its competitor.
Although there’s not a significant difference in weight between the two tires, the MaxLife’s stiffer rubber composition and, in some sizes, greater tread depth, contribute to its superior durability.
Its stiffer rubber resist wear better, while with deeper tread it takes longer to reach the U.S.’s minimum legal tread depth of 2/32″, offering an extended tread life.
But yes, in terms of treadwear warranties, both tires are same, offering 85k miles, which is by the way, the highest you get with all season tires.
For Your Info: Out of all different types of AS tires, the ones in standard touring category (like these boys here) last the longest. See all types here: https://tiredriver.com/different-types-of-all-season-tires/ (I also added the top performing tire for each category in there too).
Winter Performance
Standard touring tires are not typically known for their winter performance, which explains why they generally do not have 3-peak mountain snowflake ratings. This is also true for both of the tires discussed here.
However, if you must choose between these two, it’s important to note that the Avid Ascend LX offers slightly better overall performance, particularly in light snow conditions.
This advantage is due to its snow-optimized in-groove notches, referring to the angled spaces between its tread lugs. These notches are more effective at ejecting snow backward as the tire rolls forward, thereby enhancing the tire’s acceleration.
Moreover, the design of these notches allows the tire to grip snow particles more efficiently. They trap snow particles, promoting snow-to-snow traction. This feature is particularly crucial on softer snowy surfaces where snow adheres better to itself than to rubber.
On the other hand, the Goodyear Maxlife, although not significantly inferior, falls behind primarily due to its less flexible rubber composition.
This means that its relatively harder rubber causes the biters to stiffen in colder environments, resulting in a slight disadvantage in my overall winter tests.
Overall Comfort
Two key factors determine driving comfort: the sound emitted from the tire tread and the tire’s effectiveness in absorbing shocks from road bumps. Let me address each of these factors individually.
Noise Reduction
Road noise generation is dependent on a lot of factors, such as rolling resistance, groove resonance, and tread pattern.
And considering all of these, it can be seen why Goodyear Maxlife excels here.
This is mainly because the tire’s tread compound is designed to minimize the echoing or reflection of noise waves, thereby keeping in-groove resonance to a minimum.
Plus it also offers slightly better pitch sequencing too.
What is it? Well simply put, its a design element where generated noise is converted in to a spectrum of tones (of various frequencies).
And those tones try to cancel out each other, lowering overall noise.
Impact Comfort
Ride comfort in tires is largely influenced by their ability to dampen noise and absorb road inconsistencies.
And the Yokohama LX stands out in this regard due to its relatively softer rubber composition, which provides a notably smoother ride by effectively cushioning impacts from road imperfections like potholes and cracks (according to my tests).
In contrast, the Goodyear Assurance MaxLife, made from a stiffer rubber and featuring an internal rigid nylon cap ply, is less effective in absorbing bumps.
Side Note: Among all the tires I’ve reviewed in the standard touring all-season category, the Yokohama Avid Ascend LX ranks at the top for its superior impact comfort performance.
MPG Efficiency
Fuel efficiency in tires is affected by various elements, with weight, tread depth, and composition being key contributors (as they directly influence rolling resistance).
In this category, the Goodyear Assurance takes the lead due to its stiffer rubber composition. This rigidity prevents excessive lug bending, which is important because lug flexing requires energy to return the tread to its original shape.
Thus, the MaxLife tire more efficiently uses its energy for propulsion, enhancing fuel efficiency or conserving energy.
Conversely, the Yokohama tire, while not as efficient in this aspect, offers this as a trade-off for better winter traction.
Wrapping Up
So by now you know that choosing a better tire overall here, is complex since each excels in unique aspects of performance.
The Goodyear Assurance MaxLife demonstrates superior performance in dry conditions, particularly shining in terms of braking. And in wet, the tire although provides superior hydroplaning resistance, its traction is almost similar to the Yokohama tire.
Winter performance, typically a weaker area for standard touring tires, sees the Yokohama Avid Ascend LX performing slightly better, especially in light snow conditions.
And yes this tire also takes the lead in terms of impact comfort, though same can’t be said about noise reduction.
Other than this, the Maxlife offers superior fuel economy and tread life.
