By: Krish Persaud
August 5, 2022
The Yokohama Rubber Company was established more than a century ago in Tokyo, Japan. Over the years, Yokohama has grown to offer a vast selection of tires, such as the ADVAN performance lineup, Geolandar light truck lineup, AVID passenger lineup, PARADA lineup, BluEarth line and iceGuard winter lineup, ensuring that every tire shopper has a suitable option.
The DriveMan.ca team has had positive experiences with the Yokohama brand dating back to the first car that passed through our hands. The Yokohama Parada Spec-2 with 16″ Gold Konig Feather rims was a treat for its time. Many years had passed, many cars had come and gone, and it was time to put another set of Yokohamas to the test. We contacted our friends at Yokohama, who graciously offered us a set of Yokohama ADVAN SPORT A/S+ all-season performance tires to put to the test.
For our test, we put a set of 225/50/17 Yokohama ADVAN SPORT A/S+ tires on our 2014 Subaru Legacy, which has a continuously variable transmission and a 2.5-liter boxer four-cylinder engine. Although its primary function was never to be a sport sedan focused on performance, the Legacy is capable of handling spirited driving. After swapping out a set of run-flat Z-rated tires with about 40,000 kilometers on them, we immediately noticed how quiet the ADVAN SPORT A/S+ tires were in contrast.
The Yokohama ADVAN SPORT A/S+ tires helped improve the steering feel and allowed us to take corners significantly faster than the Bridgestone Turanza tires that came stock on our Subaru Legacy. Buyers will be pleased to learn that the ADVAN tires have a contact patch area that has been optimized for equal road surface contact, which contributes to the tire’s ability to last significantly longer than other comparable tires.
We immediately experienced a difference in the way the car handled after the first significant heavy rainfall, and noticed that the braking distances seemed to magically shorten. We attribute the improved braking performance to the silica-rich HS-2 compound, which is especially made to help in slick and wet conditions. The ADVAN SPORT A/S+ also provides a quiet ride, which is no accident—the four-pitch tread design was developed to lessen road noise.
Yokohama provides a 90,000km limited treadwear warranty for the ADVAN SPORT A/S+ tires, which is intended to provide the average buyer with an all-season tire. However, at the time this article was written, we were unable to comment on winter performance.
If you aren’t quite ready to make the switch to a summer-only tire but still want the year-round performance of a great all-season tire, you’ve found your match. We were pleased with the results after our testing period; these tires ticked all of our boxes. Our 2014 Subaru Legacy isn’t the fastest car on straightaways, but with its lower center of gravity and the Yokohama ADVAN SPORT A/S+ tires, we discovered that the tires helped us reconnect with the performance we thought was lost forever in the corners.
