These are my comments when I switched to my first set of Yokohamas back in 2012. These have been great tires here in Texas. My second set were installed in 2015 and they have about 50K miles on them now.
These (like many other tires brands) are rotationally specific tires which must be installed in the correct tire rotation on the rim due to their tread design. Discount Tire installed them backwards by mistake.
Make sure your company does it right.
6-12-12
Yokohama Parada Spec X Tire Evaluation
With 42K miles on the OEM Bridgestone Dueler 92A tires (265/50R20), they were at the end of their life and it was time for replacements. The Bridgestone’s had a very hard carcass and tread which allowed the rear of the car to break loose rather easy on asphalt and was actually scary in the wet, even when they were new. The anti-skid feature was activating way too often and this contributed to me having to replace the rear brake pads sooner than I felt I should have at 20k miles. Every time it rained, and often even on dry slick asphalt under aggressive turning force, the anti skid feature would activate quite often due to the slippage in turns under acceleration. As the tires got older, their habits got even worse. The hard sidewall produced a stiff, rough, bouncy ride and had always been somewhat noisy inside the car. You could feel every little ripple and crack in the road and they had a tendency to track any road grooves parallel to the lane of travel. The upside of this stiff carcass tire is very quick steering response and feedback from the road surface and long tread life. As the OEM shocks had become more soft with mileage and age, the stiff tires were kicking the suspension pretty hard over square edged obstacles at 42K miles. The tires are an integral part of any suspension and because the Bridgestone’s were so stiff and transmitting so much energy into the chassis, the suspension was now really showing its age. So my next task will be to find some good shocks.
Before evaluating the Yokohamas, I made sure tire pressures were 34 psi as OEM speced. I ran this in the stones as well their entire life. From the moment I started rolling the car out of the tire shop parking lot, I could tell these were much softer than the OEM Bridgestone’s that had been on the car since it was new. So soft in fact, I was afraid I was going to lose most of the great steering response of the FX. As it turns out, this was not the case. While I still wanted responsive handling and quick steering, I was willing to sacrifice a little of that in order to get a slightly softer footprint, traction and ride. I think I have found it in the Yokohamas! I only have a few hundred miles on these at this point, but they are a real pleasure to ride on compared to the old hard Bridgestone’s. Ride quality is greatly improved. These feel and ride much softer than the steering response implies. Traversing road expansion joints and lane dimples are soft bumps now rather than hard snaps as before with the stones. The car ride feels like the shocks have been changed! Steering response is just slightly delayed compared to the stones but the ride is much more plush and quite. If the stones rate a 10 for quick steering response, the Paradas would rate 8.5 or 9 on the same scale. If the stones rate a 2-3 for ride quality, the Paradas would rate 8-9 on the same scale. During an aggressive lane change maneuver, I can just barley feel them squirm before the car responds and snaps into action where the stones reacted slightly quicker. Some of this steering response delay is due to the deeper tread on these new tires as the stones were almost bald. A deeper tread will wind up to some degree before the car responds, so that said, these respond rather well considering the plush ride they provide. In my humble opinion, I feel the trade off is well worth it and it’s what I was hoping for in the new tire. The FX is a luxury Crossover/SUV and I feel this tire is much better suited for the FX than the stones were. I have to agree with a lot of the comments posted on forums about these tires. They are a great replacement tire for the FX35 and what should have been the OEM tires from the factory.
Sound Pressure Test
There have been comments pertaining to how loud certain tires are compared to others. Since I have some work experience in sound level recording and have a meter, I thought I would post some findings to quantify the difference. While the Yokohama’s are generally quieter than the Bridgestone’s at ANY speed, they do have a peak sweet spot at 65 mph. At this speed they are 4 dBa quieter than the Bridgestone’s which is very noticeable.
Note:
For reference………..A sound pressure increase of 10dB above a previous value doubles the perceived loudness effect.
Table chart sound pressure levels SPL level test normal voice sound levels pressure sound intensity ratio decibel comparison chart conversion of sound pressure to sound intensity noise sound units decibel level comparison of common sounds calculation compression rarefaction loudness decibel dB scale ratio factor unit examples - sengpielaudio Sengpiel Berlin
Sound Pressure Test
The following sound pressure readings were taken at various speeds on concrete roads with all windows up and the air conditioning (AC) turned off unless otherwise noted. Sound probe is located drivers side, chest high facing forward, scale weighting is dBa on a slow averaging rate speed of 1 in 3 seconds. Any readings shown with the AC on is with the AC in the Recirculation mode and on the Bi-Level setting. The Bi-Level setting is not the loudest AC setting on the FX35.
Bridgestone’s Yokohama’s
Sound Pressure dBa Sound Pressure dBa
AC off AC on AC off AC on
45 mph 67 67 66 67
55 mph 69 68
65 mph 73 69
75 mph 74 75 72 74
I took a reading to show how much the AC (on the Bi-Level setting) contributes to the total sound signature within the car. At idle, in Park and with the AC fan on Hi, the AC’s sound signature contribution is significant and is the most dominate sound source detected because there is not much sound energy present in a stationary vehicle at idle. The AC’s contribution to the total sound pressure signature level remains the same as vehicle speed increases but as the vehicle speed increases, other factors such as road, engine and wind noise become the most dominating contributors to the total sound signature .
In Park and at Idle with AC off 51 dBa.
In Park and at Idle with AC on Hi fan speed 62 dBa.
4-16-15 80148 Yokohama Tire Install $ 849.90
Installed my second set of Yokohama Parada Spec X tires as the previous set have finally worn out. These are the same model and size 265/50R-20 as previously installed. Price includes Life Time spin balance and flat repairs. See my evaluation of these tires in my notes on 6-12-12. Purchased and installed at Discount Tire.
On
4-20-15 I noticed the two right side tires had been mounted in reverse! These are rotationally specific tires which must be installed in the correct tire rotation due to the tread design. Discount Tire flipped them around. I may have driven only 200-300 miles with them installed backwards. Discount said it should not hurt them.
)... At least he's near the border so he's got what's available in the US, which seems like it's not as much as you have in the Netherlands... There was a LOT more available in Canada and the US 10 years ago when I first got my FX, but choices are diminishing over the years 
