Yokohama Tires Vs Goodyear: Review And Comparison [For 2023]

Choosing the right tire for your vehicle can be challenging, with so many brand names available. Amongst others, should you choose Yokohama or Goodyear?

While you are researching tires, be sure to visit the tire category page and bookmark these popular articles: Yokohama Tires Vs Continental: Review And Comparison, Yokohama Vs. Bridgestone Tires, and The 3 Main Reasons Toyo Tires Are So Expensive

We’ll review a bit more information about each brand to give you some deeper insight into any differences between these two well known tire companies. Let’s examine Yokohama tires vs Goodyear.

Yokohama Tires vs Goodyear

You’ve probably heard of both Goodyear and Yokohama tires. Goodyear has been around for a very long time and is of course also known for having their blimp. Yokohama is less flashy but is still on the tire sales rack at many tire shops. Amongst many tire brands like Cooper tires, these are a handful you see just about everywhere.

What are the differences between Yokohama and Goodyear tires?

In many ways, Yokohama and Goodyear offer similar tires, but looking deeper you can see a difference

Yokohama Tire details

Yokohama has 6 families of tires, ranging from the economical ADVAN brand which is known to be good at wet and dry handling as well to AVID which offers a bit more comfort to the driver, including a quieter experience.

Yokohama then quickly moved to Geolander, a popular all-season touring tire in addition to what amounts to an off-road tire from Yokohama’s range of tires. Higher up in the Geolander series, your mud and dirt truck driver will feel right at home. 

Ice Guard rounds out the extreme conditions tire types for Yokohama, and is meant to provide the aggressive tread and rubber compounds needed to dig into snow and ice (there really isn’t such a thing as an ice tire) in wet and cold conditions.

Finally, we come around to the PARADA, which climbs the performance ladder from ADVAN and AVID and offers a tighter grip while taking hard corners – this is more of a sports car tire.

Overall, Yokohama is probably best known for its performance tires and its overall pricing. A shopper making comparisons while at the tire store or a Yokohama tires website will likely see that they are priced a bit lower than other popular brands. 

While this may be appealing, tire shoppers should also consider that buying tires often involves a compromise between comfort, price, and handling.

Goodyear tire details

Compared to Yokohama, Goodyear offers a little more variety. We previously mentioned that tire buyers often have to sacrifice comfort, price, or handling when selecting a tire, and in the case of Goodyear compared to Yokohama, you’ll likely be sacrificing some of your wallets.

Goodyear starts their 10-tire type series with the Assurance and Eagle, which are roughly equivalent to Yokohama tires and their ADVAN and AVID. 

Goodyear Tire offers some more subtle divisions within Assurance, including tires called WeatherReady, which are meant to handle wet roads better, and FuelMax, which offers lower rolling resistance which can lead to higher MPG ratings. The Outlast is also in this category, which is designed for lasting tread life. The Eagle category is more for driving enthusiasts who want great high speed performance and grippy cornering.

Going into more categories for Goodyear tires, we have Goodyear Ultra Grip and Goodyear Winter Command. Ultra Grip, as the name indicates, is designed for better overall braking performance and braking distance. 

Winter Command is Goodyear’s popular winter tire with compounds intended to stay soft on cold roads while also digging into the snow.

Goodyear Wrangler is more of an all-terrain tire made for SUVs, trucks, and off-roading. You’ll commonly see these as stock tires on new pickups. 

Goodyear does offer another step up for off-road performance with the little-known Fierce series that are more geared toward people who drive through mud and dirt and less on regular highways.

Adding to the extensive Goodyear lineup is the well known Integrity series, which has all-season tires at a low price that is more competitive with Yokohama’s offerings that are good for an everyday commute. 

Finally, Fortera adds an all-season element to tires like the Integrity for a bit more money.

So which tire should I pick?

While we have compared tire brands extensively here, we do have to say that much of the decision should be about which tires work best for you. We have more thoughts, questions, and other things for you to consider before telling you what we would pick.

How do I know which tires are best between Yokohama and Goodyear tires?

Look at tests

We strongly suggest checking out review websites like TireRack.com. We saw this because their site, in addition to a few others, does an excellent job of both offering user reviews about tires – and they take tires out into the real world, under mostly realistic conditions and actually try the tire. 

They test braking distance in the dry and wet in addition to how the tire feels on the road. These are important tests, though TireRack does offer subjective road feel tests which don’t have real measurements, though the drivers are largely considered skilled enough to make a distinction. 

We’ll tell you that aside from the road noise a tire makes while taking a corner, most people won’t notice the difference in sound anyway. 

You’ll more likely notice the difference when trying to brake – and hoping that a few feet of difference won’t mean the difference between stopping on time and getting into a fender bender. 

If a tire makes enough sound to prevent you from having a conversion at a normal tone of voice while driving, then you’ll either want to speak louder or know that the trade-off is stopping shorter.

Consider your priorities. 

If you have a long commute that also faces occasional or frequent inclement weather ranging from rain to snow or extreme cold, it might be worth looking into Yokohama’s Ice Guard series or the Goodyear Winter Command tires

The good news is that there isn’t a wrong answer here, though you’ll want to consider one thing:

No tire will help you on actual ice. If the roads are coated in bumpy or black ice, the only real chance you have is from braking early and maintaining a good following distance.

Should you drive a more comfortable car that will allow you to feel the difference between a lower priced ADVAN or Integrity tire, perhaps look at the road noise and road cushion like ratings that TireRack offers. 

Here is our biggest suggestion: If price is a big factor for you, Yokohama offers great pricing on their tires and can often be found for at least a few dollars less tire per than Goodyear for a comparable model. Goodyear tires cost a lot in part because of their marketing efforts. Don’t pay to see commercials.

If you do dig in and see that Yokohamas take a few more feet to stop in the rain, or don’t feel quite as good on a sports car, you might want to consider buying a Goodyear tire just because they do tend to be a bit more comfortable. 

Yokohama tires are not uncomfortable by any means, but Yokohama tires are more akin to a budget brand than Goodyear. 

Overall, many tire brands are rather similar, and it’s all up to the specifics that are important to you.

If you drive a lot and want good gas mileage, consider the Yokohama Blue series or Goodyear FuelMax to get better gas mileage because of lowered rolling resistance. If you don’t want to get new tires as often as others, consider one that has a nice long tread life or a longer warranty (Goodyear offers a great tire warranty). 

What the writer would pick

I personally prefer Goodyear tires simply because they offer a larger variety of tires with a good mix of all seasons that are designed for a variety of purposes.

I live in the upper Midwest and better than average snow handling is important, short of actually buying snow tires – driving gently and having a tire that has a good chance of finding a grip is rather important, so it’s Goodyear tires for me. 

A person who frequently drives a basic sedan or SUV through dry conditions in the south or west might find that a more basic tire helps, and could readily choose Yokohama and be very happy with how the tires perform. 

It’s also difficult to suggest to someone to “test” out a tire as most tire shops don’t exactly let you take tires back if you don’t like them.

Key Takeaways

• Goodyear and Yokohama have some comparable tires
• In order to see details and specific test results, we suggest visiting TireRack.com
• Significant factors can include cornering performance, road noise, and tread life.
• Goodyear tyres are considered a slightly more premium brand
• Yokohama tires typically cost less which can be important to some.