Product Spotlight: Yokohama Advan Sport A/S
As automotive enthusiasts, we pay attention to every aspect of our cars, but often we overlook one of the most important parts of the car – those 4 precious places where car and ground actually meet. With tires being so important, the right or wrong choice can have a major impact on the feel of the car, good or bad. We’re going to be spending some time looking at a specific case, which has so far given us dramatic results.
The subject of our product review is our very own 2006 A4 quattro Avant , with the eager 2.0TFSI engine, and 6 speed tiptronic trans. When we purchased this car, it had a set of Bridgestone RE 970s which were admittedly nearing the end of their useful life. We wanted to get them off the car as soon as possible, because they were just strange feeling. They followed road imperfections too much, were noisy, and worst of all, were just too stiff for our liking. In wet weather they were spooky, and hydroplaned badly. Even when underinflated, they provided such a stiff ride that it made our A4 feel like a TTRS on bad roads, and they weren’t even “run flat” sidewalls.
Enter the Yokohama Advan Sport A/S, which is touted as being an “ultra high performance” all season tire (which in Vermont means late spring, summer and most of the autumn). We’ve tended to opt for all-season tires lately, because they generally wear better, and are much more forgiving on the less than perfect roads that we tend to travel.
Yokohama has this to say about the Advan Sport A/S:
“Sport and luxury car drivers demand great performance–year round. That’s why we created the all-new ADVAN Sport A/S. This ultra-high performance, all-season tire delivers exceptional handling in dry weather, rain and even light snow, along with superior ride comfort for a smoother, more enjoyable drive”
We decided that with new rubber should come new wheels, and we were looking for something OEM looking, but at a less than OEM price. We also wanted to stay at 17” which is becoming increasingly difficult to do. A quick check of the ECS Tuning website landed us on a sweet set of Alzor 628 wheels, in Gunmetal. These wheels perfectly replicate the OEM Audi “Rotor” wheel, and for a fraction of the cost. The wheels are reasonably light, and look great on our A4. We went with the 35mm offset, which is just a tad more pushed out than the original wheels at 32mm. The hub centric adapters supplied by ECS fit perfectly, and the plastic won’t be able to stick to the hubs, an added bonus.
We’ve got a few hundred miles on the tires already, and we can say that without a doubt, these tires have made a dramatic change in the way our car rides, and handles. The Advan Sport A/S offers a significantly smoother and more “plush” ride, without feeling soft and squishy. Cornering grip is still excellent, and the turn in actually feels a bit better, even though the sidewalls are not as stiff as the Bridgestones. The old tires we had felt like the initial turn in was great, but then they felt a little slippery. Because the Yokohamas are softer and grippier, the car feels better mid corner than it did on the old tires.
Overall we are thrilled with the Yokohama tires. They have brought our A4 back to being fun and comfortable to drive thanks to the smooth and quiet ride, and their dramatically improved wet handling increases the safety threshold. With winter rapidly approaching, we’re looking forward to seeing how these tires will handle light snow. We have no intention of keeping them on all winter, but we acknowledge that there are many in the USA who don’t get enough annual snow to warrant full snow tires, so we’d like to see how these tires handle the occasional snow.