Article: 70557 of rec.autos.tech
Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
From: eric@qnx.com (Eric Johnson)
Subject: Yokohama A510 - (long) review
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 95 16:49:59 GMT

I thought I'd post an update to a previous thread
I started in which I enquired from Those In The Know
about the Yokohama A510 tire.

I received several helpful replies, mostly from
Canada and the U.K., all of which indicated that
it was a reasonable tire. So I ordered some.

My tire size is 195/55R14 which is perfect for
putting wide rubber on a small car, but is a
little uncommon as most people go for 185/60R14s
(A509s, at 2/3 the price) instead. Anyway, it
took about a week to get the tires - got a couple
via Montreal and a couple via Toronto. So, low
marks for availability (though they did have a few
in the country at least).

First impressions - the tires look great. Nice,
squat look about them and an agressive tread for
handling water dispersion. The tires are
unidirectional with a similar tread pattern to
the 509, plus three water channels running around
the circumference of the tire.

I was previously running A001Rs, an older soft-
compound (treadwear 50) tire in 195/60R14.
The 195/55R14 A510s are noticeably smaller in diameter
(which was what I wanted) and result in noticeably
improved accelleration (probably a combination of
diameter and reduced weight), noticeably reduced
road noise, and drastically reduced steering effort.
This is not without a correspondingly reduced
TRACTION on clean, dry pavement]. But that was
to be expected.

Overall, handing is excellent. The ride is more
comfortable than the A001Rs, nice and quiet, yet
the sidewall stiffness is 'ok'. Steering response
is almost identical to the 195/60 A001Rs. Dry
pavement breakaway is smooth. The tires do start
to slide before the A001Rs would have, but that
was expected. The exception is when there is crud
on the road (bits of gravel etc) where the A510s
basically hold on for the ride where the A001Rs
would have slid.

Wet performance is very good. Much better than
the A001Rs in terms of resistance to hydroplaning.
Last night I even drove them (cautiously) in some
light snow accumulation.. not bad, for a summer
tire.

Overall, I'd say this is a superb summer street
tire where wet performance, noise, and steering
effort are considerations. In my case, my fiancee
could not turn the wheel at 0mph when then A001Rs
were on the car. Not a problem with the A510s.
There is a fair performance gap between this and
more race-oriented soft-compound rubber. This
is a performance tire but it is definitely made
for the street and it behaves accordingly.

-- 
Eric Johnson                                 eric@qnx.com
Technical Development                  data (613)591-0934
QNX Software Systems Ltd.             voice (613)591-0931                    
'Sometimes, when you get someone's goat, it goes and eats your petunias.'