New Yoko's

OK...I know if you read the forum people RAVE about the Yokohama Parada's. Well, ALL that hype is TRUE. I just replaced my Duelers (at 48K Miles!!!) w/255/50/20 Paradas. Why did I wait so long?? All the negative driving trends are gone, no more 'hunting', vibration, noise...just pure grip.

If you haven't changed yet....DO IT!!

Ohhh, btw, if tirerack.com is out of stock, easytire.com has them.
 
I have mine on for 15K already. They look like they can last AT LEAST another 30K!
 
Pulled the Duelers off of mine at 26k and just turned over 42k on the Paradas. I wish I'd replaced the Duelers about 25k miles earlier!
 
Just pulled the Duelers off three weeks ago at 37K and followed the advice of the members here and went with Paradas. So far I am very impressed and the reduction in road noise alone is worth the switch. Tirerack.com had the Yokos on back order but the local Hibdon Tires Plus had a set of 4 at the warehouse and matched the tirerack price, plus they were running at $50 rebate.
 
Just have the Paradas mounted and balanced last week. Can't tell about the grip in the snow yet, but they are on par in dry with the old Toyo Proxes 2. Will follow up once there are snows on the ground.
 

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The Paradas are 'as advertised." My experience after getting 37,000 out of the Duelers is the same as zipinitaly's...all vibration, hunting, and road noise is gone. Rides/quiet as it was when the car was new. Tires were great in the snow we just had ( 4 inches)...the combo of the Paradas/AWD and I couldn't get the tires to slip! Got some 6-10" snow coming tomorrow...cant wait to try em out!
 
One thing that I like about the Paradas is how well it does on ice. I've found them to be better than the bridgestones.
 
I'd love to see a real head to head comparison of these tires. I find it hard to learn much from comparing worn out Duellers with brand new Paradas. Does any one know of a proper head to head comparison on both closed course and real world driving?
 
Personally I believe in the high mileage reviews on tirerack.com.
Spec-X is clearly ranked much higher than the Dueller, cheaper too.
After owning both (Dueller for 25K, Spec-X for 10K now), I agree 100% with the ranking.
 
Personally I believe in the high mileage reviews on tirerack.com.
Spec-X is clearly ranked much higher than the Dueller, cheaper too.
After owning both (Dueller for 25K, Spec-X for 10K now), I agree 100% with the ranking.

The problem is that only the subjective customer reviews show any difference. Related tires (other Duellers compared to other Yokos) in professional comparisons on both CR and TireRack don't show anywhere near the sorts of differences that the subjective reviews do. The Duellers rate higher than similar Yokos in several instances in professional reviews that actually use test track data etc. I get the sense that there is a huge amount of bias against the Duellers in the subjective reviews and that makes me a bit suspicious of the raves for the Spec X too. People who fill out those forms may very well be guilty of "group think" and just reiterating the common (incorrect???) wisdom that there is a huge difference between the tires. They are also rating the Yoko's highly I imagine because that is what they bought as replacements and are simply confirming their decision (very common in any type of post purchase customer survey). I find it very hard to believe that the Duellers really rate a 4.2 or so which is literally the worst tire in the category while the Spec X rates close to the top. If you compare professional reviews of each company's related all season tires they are essentially the same as both rate well. Other Duellers rank well in snow compared to other all season tires. Why should the Dueller 400's be so bad if designed by the same engineers and built by the same factory? I suspect that the fact that 1) the Duellers are the factory equipment (and we all know that the factory would never bother to give us good tires right?) and 2) that the Spec X's are significantly less expensive as replacement tires (aren't I smart to have found a better tire for less money than the factory did) has contributed to these distorted ratings. The other element is that virtually everyone is comparing worn Duellers to new Spec X tires and that it is very likely that people can distinguish handling characteristics in that setting even if it is an unfair comparison.

By the way, we just had 15 inches of snow last night and I dug out the CX9 and took it for a "spin" before streets were bare pavement. I have only my Mercedes ML320 with Michelin all seasons to compare to but basically I could not detect any real difference. I could spin the tires a little more easily with throttle but the CX9 is more powerful and I had no spin with moderate throttle from stop. Braking also very similar with ABS cutting in if I braked hard on snow just as it should but no different than with the ML. No ice to make a comparison on that surface.
 
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