Alin10123

Hey there,
I appreciate everybody's help on here in deciding my replacement tires for my 05 TSX. In order to give back to the community, i'm going to post my review here so that others can read it too. After careful consideration between the Avon M550's and the Yoko Avid V4's, i finally decided to go with the V4's. I was reading a bunch of reviews here and basically the consensus was that i could not go wrong with either one. That of course didn't help much but it at least narrowed it down a lot.

So basically i went onto tirerack and read the reviews there. I chose the Avid V4's becuase there were less complaints about noise. Although the Avon's are very quiet too, but many said they get kinda loud as they age and that was my biggest gripe with the stock tires.

Anyways, after about 500 miles of driving i absolutely LOVE these things!

My initial impressions while pulling out of the installation place was that these things are SOOO smooth. The bump i ran over in order to pull out of the driveway felt 10x smoother than with the OEM tires. Usually, this equates to a softer sidewall, but for some really odd reason, that did not seem to be the case with these tires. I noticed a lot less body roll, and a lot more comfortable ride. Just what i was looking for .

On the highway these things are very quiet as well. Funny thing... i was driving down the highway for the first time and as i sped up, i was expecting much more road noise. I kept accelerating and was thinking to myself "what the heck? something isn't right, i'm hitting the gas but it doesn't feel faster". I look down at the speedo and i'm already doing 70mph. What threw me off was that these tires are much quieter. I then turned on the radio to volume level 13 which i normally listen to the music at and it sounded much louder and clearer than normal. I could also notice more wind noise sneaking in from the windows. So i knew it was because road noise was cut down. On rough roads these tires are only slightly quieter than stock, but on smooth highway there's a night and day difference. These tires also have a very nice "on center" feel when i'm cruising.

The grip on these things are unbelievable. I took an offramp at about 15mph faster than i normally take it and not even a squeek out of these tires. They stayed silent. My stockers would've been screaming for mercy at speeds below that even. These tires are incredibly sticky. I just hope that the noise and stickiness stay relatively consistant as the tire ages since it's got a 60k tread warranty.

I also noticed that while turning or taking a corner, the steering wheel is much easier to turn. Not sure why that is... but that's what i'm feeling.

Ok... you've heard the praise... now it's time for the things i find negetive. The only thing that i have to complain about these tires right now is the flatspotting when the car sits overnight. It's not terribly cold in Ga during the winter time and i'm already running +3 PSI on each corner to try and help with the flatspotting. In the morning the tires are smooth all the way to 70mph, and as soon as i get close to 75mph i will get an ever so slight vibration in my steering wheel. Its extremely mild however. Just feels like it's a tad out of balance. When i say a tad, i do mean a tad. It's just that on our TSX because of the rack and pinion and the steering ratio, we pretty much feel everything that comes through the road. Of course... that's how our car was designed to feel like. So we can't really blame anyone. Flat spotting is fairly common on higher performance tires because of a softer tread compound. So i'm not terribly worried about that. Although in the past, my high performance tires flatspotting typically rounded back out within 2-3 miles. These tires can take up to 5-10 miles to feel perfectly round and smooth again.

I also got a road force balance and high speed 120mph on the car balancing with these. So the car drives like it's riding on glass. If anyone is in the Atlanta area and you have any vibration problems, i can hook you up on a good deal with a good old high speed balance. I have a friend that works there and he takes GOOD care of people that he knows. These guys know their stuff and all you see is porsches, and ferraris and high end cars being worked on here. The place i went to torques and untorques EVERYTHING by hand. You will not hear one air tool going off in that shop. EVER! They dont even have air tools laying around. Everything is done by hand and they even clean your wheels while they are at it. The place is usually pretty expensive, but with the deal i can get you, the special balancing will only be a few bucks more than your regular balance at other places.
They are experts at mounting low profile tires on large wheels, and if you watch them mount a tire, they use EXTRA EXTRA care not to scratch a wheel. If your car doesn't drive silky smooth all the way up to 120mph the first time they balance it, they will redo the balance again! Or... try and figure out what's wrong usually.


Ok... enough raving about how good the shop that did my work is.

Not only go the tires drive well... but they also look fantastic. From the sidewall view... these things just look so agressive. They actually make the TSX look nicer and faster.

These are my initial impressions on the tire. I was not expecting to write a whole essay lol. But i figured somebody else could benefit from a nice detailed review just as i have detailed from others posting about their new tires. If you have any questions... you can post them here and i'll be glad to answer them!

I will try to update periodically to keep track of how these things perform as they age!

By the way... i'm also rolling on the stock sized wheels and tires.

JTso

iTrader: (2)

Those tires also wear really well. I just rotated them on one of my cars after 13k miles and they still look pretty new.

David Muny

Nice review. These tires are on my short list along with M550 and PE2's .

waTSX

Nice review, Alin. Sounds like the M550's and the Avid V4's both have a bit of the flatspotting issue, probably for the reasons you list. One of the tradeoffs for going with a higher perf tire.

I'm strongly considering this rubber. Your review helps. If you don't mind, what'd you end up paying for them?

Alin10123

www.tirerack.com
They are $104 each for the stock tire size. Then add shipping and tax depending on where you are located. For me it ended up to be almost $500 i think. But they are still well worth it. Tirerack also has a warehouse out in the middle of nowhere in Georgia so it only took UPS one day to get them to me via UPS ground.

Alin10123

By the way... it's too late to edit now. But what i meant to say was "I was NOT expecting to write a whole essay".

jlukja

fixed

Alin10123

SWEET! Thanks.

IlliNorge

Thanks for the in-depth review. When my TSX arrives in May the first thing I plan on doing is swapping out the OEM's with the Yoko Avids. I looked them up at tirerack too. A quick question (for anybody):

My plan is to have the Avids shipped to a local tire place that I trust and to immediately swap out the Michelins. Is there an amount of $ I can reasonably expect to receive for giving them my virtually unused $189/each tires?

jlukja

You can check our black market section. I recall seeing some for sale so you may get an idea of how much they go for.

tuan209

im in the market for some new tires as well, and im also considering these tires. however, tirerack didnt give them a very good rating in wet performance.

Alin10123

When i first put these on, the next night it was raining. They seemed to hold up pretty well and even driving through large puddles of water at highway speeds, the car still seemed to be kept pretty straight and felt like the tires just sliced right through the water.

Like my review said, can't really find anything bad at all with the exception of the flat spotting that you will find on ALL high performance tires.

Alin10123

Yea, shipping to a shop to install is no problem. However, i doubt any shop will give you $ for them. The resale here in the black market section probably isn't going to be that high since most members that are here will want to change them out. You might want to look on ebay or something. Or... find a place that sells used tires and offer than like $100/tire or something.

I originally was oging to wait until the stockers wore out in about a year but i could a stinking nail in one that could'nt be repaired.
So instead of paying $250 for a new one, i opted for 4 upgraded ones for $400.