bluestreakrem
Member
- Location
- houston
- Car
- FX35
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 the anti skid feature would activate 2-3 times a day due to the slippage in turns under acceleration. As they got old, 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 on 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 9-10 on the same scale. During an aggressive lane change maneuver, I can just barley feel them squirm before the car responds and snaps into a turn 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 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 here about these tires. They are a great replacement tire for the FX35.
Update on 6-16-12:
My original post was based on only surface streets with no highway miles. I finally have drove the freeway today for about 50 miles and this is what I'd like to add to the review.
While the Yokes precise and quick handling was very close to the stones at 45mph and lower, they are worse at freeway speeds. Under very quick maneuvering, the side walls do roll more than the stones and this produces a some yawing and body roll as speed increases. If the car is quickly oscillated slightly left and right through the steering wheel, the car produces some "tail wagging the dog" feel where the stones were almost rock solid. IMHO it's not too bad for the trade off for such a smooth ride but that is a subjective opinion and yours may be different. I don't think it's too bad and that's my opinion, but they ARE looser than the stones. If you insist on the "go cart" quick response from the car that the stones provided, the Yokes may not be to your liking. If you’re willing to accept some tradeoffs in handling to get a HUGE increase in ride, you may love them as I do. I think they strike a good balance between handling and ride quality. After all these are not a "high performance handling" tire but rather a "truck/SUV" tire. I was wanting a softer ride and I knew I would lose some handling as a result. Dam physics! I will experiment with tire pressures to see if handling improves as pressure goes up from 34 psi. Sometime pressure can improve the tires handling, sometimes not. I'll post about that later.
If the stones rated a 10 (best) for quick side to side transition response, I rate the yokes at 7.5-8 on the same scale.
If the stones rated a 10 (best) for lack of body roll and sway, I rate the yokes at 8.5 on the same scale.
They are very quite at high speeds. Much quieter than the stones. I'll post an actual sound pressure level comparison later but I don't think the actual numbers will not convey just how much they are perceived to be quieter, at least by me. High pressure levels are fatiguing over time and I didn't realize just how loud the stones were until the yokes were installed and I blasted down the freeway. Even at a moderate 70 mph they are noticeably quieter. That's why they feel so good running down the freeway. The cockpit is not as "busy" due to the reduction of the sound and over all less vibration.
As far as road vibration, there is definitely less transmitted through the steering wheel now. The stones always transmitted more road vibration and buzz into the steering wheel due to their stiff carcass even when new. While it is to be expected that as old as the stones were there may be some out of balance in them and this may have contributed to their vibration/buzz feel, there were no obvious indicators of that in tire tread wear. Tread wear was very good and flat across the tread with zero cupping on the old stones. It was just their nature to buzz more than these yokes. As you'd expect the stones provided more road feedback feel to them than the yokes.
If the stones rated a 10 (best) for great road feel response, I rate the yokes at 8 on the same scale.
If the stones rated a 10 (worst) for poor steering wheel vibration/buzz, I rate the yokes at 6 on the same scale.
Something common at both low and high speeds with the yokes (as compared to the stones) is less steering effort. It is less with the yokes. Steering is light and precise but still has good road feedback. The front doesn't feel as heavy as it did with the stones.
If the stones rated a 10 (worst) for heavy steering wheel input, I rate the yokes at 6 on the same scale.
Update 6-18-12
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.
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 and parked, the AC’s sound signature contribution is significant as there is not much sound energy present in a stationary vehicle with the AC off. The AC’s contribution to the total sound pressure level decreases as speed increases, as 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 62 dBa.
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 the anti skid feature would activate 2-3 times a day due to the slippage in turns under acceleration. As they got old, 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 on 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 9-10 on the same scale. During an aggressive lane change maneuver, I can just barley feel them squirm before the car responds and snaps into a turn 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 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 here about these tires. They are a great replacement tire for the FX35.
Update on 6-16-12:
My original post was based on only surface streets with no highway miles. I finally have drove the freeway today for about 50 miles and this is what I'd like to add to the review.
While the Yokes precise and quick handling was very close to the stones at 45mph and lower, they are worse at freeway speeds. Under very quick maneuvering, the side walls do roll more than the stones and this produces a some yawing and body roll as speed increases. If the car is quickly oscillated slightly left and right through the steering wheel, the car produces some "tail wagging the dog" feel where the stones were almost rock solid. IMHO it's not too bad for the trade off for such a smooth ride but that is a subjective opinion and yours may be different. I don't think it's too bad and that's my opinion, but they ARE looser than the stones. If you insist on the "go cart" quick response from the car that the stones provided, the Yokes may not be to your liking. If you’re willing to accept some tradeoffs in handling to get a HUGE increase in ride, you may love them as I do. I think they strike a good balance between handling and ride quality. After all these are not a "high performance handling" tire but rather a "truck/SUV" tire. I was wanting a softer ride and I knew I would lose some handling as a result. Dam physics! I will experiment with tire pressures to see if handling improves as pressure goes up from 34 psi. Sometime pressure can improve the tires handling, sometimes not. I'll post about that later.
If the stones rated a 10 (best) for quick side to side transition response, I rate the yokes at 7.5-8 on the same scale.
If the stones rated a 10 (best) for lack of body roll and sway, I rate the yokes at 8.5 on the same scale.
They are very quite at high speeds. Much quieter than the stones. I'll post an actual sound pressure level comparison later but I don't think the actual numbers will not convey just how much they are perceived to be quieter, at least by me. High pressure levels are fatiguing over time and I didn't realize just how loud the stones were until the yokes were installed and I blasted down the freeway. Even at a moderate 70 mph they are noticeably quieter. That's why they feel so good running down the freeway. The cockpit is not as "busy" due to the reduction of the sound and over all less vibration.
As far as road vibration, there is definitely less transmitted through the steering wheel now. The stones always transmitted more road vibration and buzz into the steering wheel due to their stiff carcass even when new. While it is to be expected that as old as the stones were there may be some out of balance in them and this may have contributed to their vibration/buzz feel, there were no obvious indicators of that in tire tread wear. Tread wear was very good and flat across the tread with zero cupping on the old stones. It was just their nature to buzz more than these yokes. As you'd expect the stones provided more road feedback feel to them than the yokes.
If the stones rated a 10 (best) for great road feel response, I rate the yokes at 8 on the same scale.
If the stones rated a 10 (worst) for poor steering wheel vibration/buzz, I rate the yokes at 6 on the same scale.
Something common at both low and high speeds with the yokes (as compared to the stones) is less steering effort. It is less with the yokes. Steering is light and precise but still has good road feedback. The front doesn't feel as heavy as it did with the stones.
If the stones rated a 10 (worst) for heavy steering wheel input, I rate the yokes at 6 on the same scale.
Update 6-18-12
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.
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 and parked, the AC’s sound signature contribution is significant as there is not much sound energy present in a stationary vehicle with the AC off. The AC’s contribution to the total sound pressure level decreases as speed increases, as 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 62 dBa.
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