SANTA ANA, Calif. — Yokohama Tire Corp. is revamping its Avid line of touring tires, adding the Ascend GT all-season premium touring tire targeted at owners of luxury sports sedans and coupes.
The Ascend GT is set to debut July 1 in North America in 50 H- and V-rated sizes, covering 15- to 20-inch rim diameters, Yokohama said, and covered by a 65,000-mile limited tread life warranty on all sizes.
At the same time, Yokohama plans to phase out the Avid ENVigor, a high-performance-oriented tire with wet and dry braking and handling as a primary design focus, and instead offer consumers seeking high levels of sport performance the Advan Sport A/S, an all-season, ultra-high-performance offering with a 50,000-mile warranty.
Yokohama describes the Ascend GT as a tire designed to provide an optimal balance of wet/winter grip, mileage, comfort and driving dynamics.
The Avid line also includes the Ascend, which is a premium touring tire designed with long mileage and comfort as the primary focus.
The Ascend GT represents a "significant step forward in terms of all-season handling, without sacrificing mileage or comfort," Andrew Briggs, Yokohama's vice president of marketing, said.
Among the Ascend GT's features are:
- Shorter wet braking performance, thanks to an asymmetric tread design with a distinct circumferential groove arrangement;
- Improved snow braking due to 3D sipes and a notched block design;
- Longer treadlife with Yokohama's "TriBLEND" tread compound and square contact patch, designed to yield long, even wear and high-speed stability; and
- Quieter ride with a multi-pitch tread block variation and adaptive outside shoulder blocks.
In revamping the Avid line, Yokohama said it sees the all-season passenger tire market split into three key categories of consumers: those who want long mileage and comfort, those who value driving dynamics above all else and those who want balanced performance between the two.
Yokohama said there will be very little overlap between the Ascend and Ascend GT in terms of sizing and speed rating. The company intends to keep most of the 85,000-mile T-rated and some of the 75,000-mile H-rated Avid Ascend sizes active to maintain its position in the high-mileage premium touring segment.
Yokohama did not provide pricing information for the Ascend GT, other than to say it sees the new tire as being an "incredible value" given the tire's level of mileage, traction, comfort and coverage.
The tire is built in Yokohama's plant in the Philippines, according its DOT code, 4U.