Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD08 first impressions

flash · 2010-08-02T12:09:33-05:00

For the last 6 years i've had Bridgestone S0-3s on the car. First I had the OEM sizes on my 17" rims. Then when I had the HRE 547R rims built, I slung them with 285-30s on the 10" rears and 255-35s on the 9" fronts. The grip was great, but the sidewalls were very stiff, resulting in a lot of jarring over bumps, and the tread pattern was both noisy and made the car tramline horribly. Since the tires had aged out, I chose to replace them. I pondered this one for quite some time, looking at every other tire out there, including DOT approved competition tires. I searched for reviews, opinions, data, and comparisons. This process went on for about 6 months. I considered every option. I got a lot of "great tire for the money" on some tires, and " super quiet" on others, and "it's always been a great tire" on yet others. In the end, for me, it came down to pure performance in dry, tire weight, and noise. While I was happy to get all the "reviews" of the tires, without comparing the tires on the same car, it was really nothing more than anecdotal. I had to make a decision though, as I could no longer run the S0-3s. Price was no object, so I immediately eliminated any of the tires that came with the "for the money" qualification. I also eliminated the heavier tires, and tires with stiff sidewalls. Then I eliminated anything that had reviews of noise later on in life. After all the sifting, I ended up with the Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD08. The reviews are pretty much all great. This is supposedly the new hot ticket. On top of that, the rears gave me a nearly 4 pound savings over the S0-3, and the fronts a 3 pound savings. That's huge! My first impression of these tires was actually rather shocking. The car was so much quieter than it had ever been, that I thought something was wrong. Windows up or down, it was just plain calm. Then I started paying attention to the calmness, and found that it was not limited to just noise level. The ride itself was extremely smooth. I had no more of the jitter and jounce that the S0-3s had. I remembered what they were like when they were new, and then they got worse. These new tires were so far beyond the best the S0-3 ever was, that I had to get out and check my pressures. Nope. Those were fine. These tires were just quiet and smooth. The real bonus though was when it came to the tram-lining problem. There is none. Not at all. No hunting. No chasing the grooves in the road. Nothing. I am stunned. This is pure pleasure. I haven't really tossed the car around yet, but so far, the grip seems great. I can tell that the side wall gives, but it's very predictable. I'll have to play with pressures and read the temps to see how that goes. So far, I am very happy with this choice. Not inexpensive by any means, but so far worth every penny.

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Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD08 first impressions

flash
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#21

06-03-2011, 08:35 PM

not a thing wrong with the pilot sports - lovely tire, quiet, smooth and long lasting, albeit a bit narrow for specified size, and a bit greasy when they get really hot - it's just not the topic of the thread, which is all about impressions on the AD08

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