I was worried. Just before Yokohama's new Geolander M/T G003 SxS tires arrived, I legit had a bit of a panic attack. My BFGoodrich tires had been so good, so reliable, so amazingly flexible on my Can-Am Maverick X3 Max over the last two years, I was worried the larger, heavier, and chunkier Yokohamas were going to be a disaster.
It was also Yokohama's first foray into the space, and I tend to wait a generation or year within a new product cycle before adopting anything, as the manufacturer tends to have to work out some kinks before they're good for mass consumption. Plus, as I've stated emphatically in the past in these very pages, I'm an engineer's worst nightmare. I'm the edge-case scenario. The 138% of the 135% they engineer for.
I'm a wrecking ball with little to no mechanical sympathy.
Now, 12 months later, having put them through a full year's worth of pain and suffering, through elk and deer season, through the winter months on my mountain compound, I'm giving them a freakin' award. How the tables have turntabled. Indeed, Yokohama's first side-by-side tire is getting my Editor's Choice Award for 2025. Damn, these are fan-freakin-tastic tires, and if you're thinking about swapping, you should absolutely look these suckers up.
Since I swapped them over, I've put over 1,500 miles on my Can-Am Maverick X3. That might not sound like a lot to most car drivers, but those 1,500 miles are basically the equivalent of 60,000 miles in any regular machine. Those are hard-earned miles, miles spent off-road on jagged rocks, climbing boulders, wadding through mountain streams, and under high-speed, and low-speed, load.
Basically, I put these tires through the sort of thing every Ford Raptor owner thinks they're going to get up to over the course of their truck's entire life in one single year. Yeah, I said it. Deal with it.
I think my opinion on these Yokohama's truly solidifed during my elk hunt, as my Can-Am was my primary vehicle for that month. Honestly, I think I spent more time behind the wheel of it than my truck from August to September, criss-crossing the unit, doing my best to try and turn up a bull elk. And one particular section stood out in its lunacy, as this snaking, boulder-filled, impossibly tight trail was littered with obstacles, drop offs, and tree limbs across the road. It was so wild, when I finally tagged out and a friend asked me where I was so he could help pack my bull out, I told him, "Don't bother. You'll get lost, and you absolutely won't be able to get to where I ended up."
Yet, there were no popped Yokohamas. Never once did my tires slip on the silty dirt-covered boulders. Even when it rained and the temperature dropped below freezing, the tires just kept on keeping on and not only got me to my destinations, but helped me finally be successful in an elk hunt. I couldn't have asked for better companions, or even better tires.
And I think that was a lot down to how square they actually were.
That sounds like an odd statement, but while the BFGs were amazing at going extremely fast, if you pointed them toward a rock garden, like the one I encountered on last year's mule deer hunt, you would slip and slide, depending on the rock's polish, the ambient precipitation, or even outside temperature. They were more rounded and, as such, would be affected by those variables as they weren't just flat across their widths. Conversely, the Yokohamas just felt...planted, with more tread consistenly touching the ground around it.
Even at high-speed, which I thought would get sketchy given that overall width and flatness, nothing really bothered the dynamics of the go-fast side-by-side. It just went. That said, there was far more feel and dynamics coming through the steering wheel, which was great when you were going slow, or when there were shorter higher speed trails. But whenever I hit longer, faster sections, I definitely dialed up the Can-Am's power assistance so my forearms could take a break.
You really can't go wrong with these tires, though.
I'm sure if you were paying attention to my reporting this year, along with my pick from last year—Royal Enfield's Himalayan 450—you won't be surprised that my pick has something to do with dirt, let alone with my feelings being solidified during my once-in-a-lifetime elk hunt. Yet, Yokohama's Geolander M/T G003 SxS tires met every criteria of an Editor's Choice Award, in that they surprised, delighted, and most importantly of all, never let me down. Honestly, I can't wait to put even more miles on them in the near future, and hopefully make some more indeliable memories thanks to their prowess.
