Avoid Cooper Tires Especially Discoverer at3

[EdGs]

This was the best deal on an AT you could get. They are no longer being sold.

Robot or human?

A little more expensive now, but not much.

Are they the same since Goodyear acquired them? Don't know.

 

[09SilverRam]

Robot or human?

A little more expensive now, but not much.

Are they the same since Goodyear acquired them? Don't know.

Try to put them in your cart and order. I can’t.

 

[jws123]

Why no warranty on the Coopers? If they had that much tread left I would've thought they'd be warrantied?

I am trying to find out if it is under warranty still and if they are I am sure they will find every excuse not to replace.

 

[EdGs]

Try to put them in your cart and order. I can’t.

Yea, coming up out of stock. That blows.

Maybe to do with the Crap-Year acquisition, hope not.

 

[Nicholas Cove]

Every pair of cooper tires that come thru our shop are scalloped all to hell.

 

[2016Bighorny]

I had a set of 4 Cooper AT3 4S on my ram too....they were GREAT...until they started checking and cracking all over the place at only about 15k miles or so. I was FED up and since switched to Pirellis.

 

[Jeepwalker]

I bought 3 sets of Cooper tires this summer. We'll see how they hold up. Now ..these tires I bought on 'price' vs quality, bc they were for seldom-driven vehicles (only a few thou miles/yr), to replace rotted tires. So I don't expect them to be as good as a pr of Michelin/Bridgestones, or other premium brands. They'll all rot off before they wear out, I'm sure. However, they balanced out well and they DO go down the road great. In fact, the last set of those inexpensive A/T's balanced out super-great ...one a Hunter Road Force balancer ..which gives an initial and final balance score on the tires. A set of 10-ply Coopers I bought have been a great tire so far ..but time will tell.

I have had in the past some Coopers that went out-of-balance after a while ..but it could have been the car they were on too. Maybe a bad shock, IDK. One thing I HAVE noticed in the past is that Cooper tires wouldn't harden or weather-check nearly as much as some other brands. Therefore if a guy had them on a classic car, or vehicle that you don't drive very often, you could go a dozen years or more and they'd still look just fine. Whereas some Michelins I've owned would weather crack in literally 5-6 years. For a DD that's ok, but for something you drive infrequently, you want to get your use out of them. Must have been the type of rubber compound cooper was using, IDK. Hope that hasn't changed, but we all know what happens when companies get bought out. They lay off duplicate staff/engineering, etc. Then usually quality suffers. But at least an asian company didn't buy them.

 

[Jeepwalker]

LOL ....I put a set of those cheapie Walmart Coopers on my 2012 Ram a month ago. They look great, priced right, quiet and smooth. Had them Road-Force balanced by a GM dealer, they balanced out real nice with hardly any weights needed. To me, a good balance job by competent people is worth a few bucks more. I refuse to go to a tire shop where I can't stand there and WATCH the guys changing or balancing my tires! You have some techs who are great, and a lot who have no clue whatsoever (I started changing/balancing tires when I was a teenager and still have balancer/changer). When some people talk about tire problems, I wonder how many of them were root-caused by incompetent installers on day one??

These Cooper A/T's are a 115-rated tire, not a 10 ply e-rate tire. Therefore it has a softer sidewall. Great for highway driving which is what this truck gets (no hauling really). On this seldom-driven Ram, they'll likely 'rot' off long before they wear out. Always choose your tires based on your needs. I've noticed on past Coopers they haven't seemed to dry-rot or weather check very much, even after a dozen yrs sitting outside. But we'll see how these go.




I'll keep the forum up to date if anything odd happens with them, but so far I couldn't be happier. There are a LOT of vehicles up in our area which have Coopers on them, due to a large and multi-state (and aggressive) distributor in the area. I've run about all the tire brands you can list ..I've had a few bad apples, but mostly have had good tires from most brands. Michilens and Japanese-owned brands seem to have consistently worked out the best for me over the years.

 

[crackerjack1957]

Had Cooper touring on my Honda Civic......only got about 20k on them......broken belts on 2 of them & the ride was like crap.........back to Michelin

 

[Jeepwalker]

Yeah, if you want a premium tire, you go Michelin. I've had several sets on vehicles over the yrs. I've had a couple sets of Bridgestones, and also great luck with Yokahama's too. Just like anything in life, you (usually) get what you pay for. Cooper has some higher-end sets too like the AT3's/4's. And classic car guys have had great results from Cooper Cobra Radial's.

That said, sometimes 'good enough' will do for a specific vehicle, depending on needs, use and, budget. You don't always need a Cadillac to go to the local grocery store. Coopers (and other bargain brands) might be the right 'fit' for some people in many instances. They don't all fail prematurely. But over time, I've had more issues with Coopers than other 'better brand' tires. When I bought my Ram (used) it had no-name Chinese tires on it. I was going to replace them right away, but honestly they ran wonderful ..till they just wore out. So you never know.

But in general terms, if you want a no-compromise, no-risk tire consistently (key word), fork out the extra $$ and go with the top tier mfgrs like those I mentioned above. Esp for a DD vehicle. They're usually a better *value* in the long run if you buy them consistently than going cheap tires, esp if you only get 50% of the life out of a particular set of cheap tires. Don't delude yourself into thinking a set of really cheap tires is going to "consistently' be the quality of Michelin's which costs 50-60% more.