Cooper or BF?

Coopers. or Procomp's.

I had the same dilema with my 80. Ended up getting BFG M/T. They are briliant tyre as far as i am concerned. Very quiet for MT.

Hi Tigger,
I can't compare the the tyres, but I run Cooper ST the noise is minimal grip on the road good,ofroad verygood,they seem to chip the blocks easy, in the wet good,I run them on my Patrol.
Take your time mate, these tyres, all tyres are expensive,especially if they don't live up to your expectations.
Hope this Helps.
All The Best In Health And Wealth
Jeffrey (AKA JD)

I had BFG M/T's on my Challenger. Before those I had BFG A/T's. If you dont like road noise, buy the AT's... The MT's gave better offroad grip, but not enough for me to justify the on road noise. Realistically I should have stuck with the AT's... I think in hindsight if I had of been honest with myself I would have just stuck with the AT's.... 85% on road 15% off road is what I do, so therefore didnt need the more aggresive tyre. I now have a HJ60 LC and am going to fit some new tyres in the next 2 weeks, I will be buying AT's such as BFG or GoodYear or Bridgestone.... Just my 2 cents... Cheers

Tigger.
go and have a bopeep at Toyo A/T Open Country.
Good tread pattern, quiet on the road, excellent wet weather grip.
20psi on sand and feels like they floating.
good grip on rocks at 20psi also.
relativelly good in the mud, especially for an A/T.(was surprised at how good they are).
40k on ours so far and not quite half worn yet.(2002 patrol.)
reasonable price as well.

rick.

I have BFG A/Ts and they are quiet and comfortable on the black top . I thouroughly recomend them for the blacktop . As for off the blacktop i havnt done much driving in these conditions but one old bloke i got talking too who was travelling all over australia said he saw more of this tyre laying on the side of the road than any other .

Tigger,

I found the Cooper ST quiet on the highway, but resiliant and puncture proof in the Kimberley. They also handled long soft sandy sections in the desert, and beach driving very well.
Wet? Whats that?

Tigger,

I have a set of Cooper S/T's on my Prado that are nearing 100,000Km's and still going strong (Maybe get to 110,000Km's with them - hope so!). No problems with them - road noise is low - off road grip is great. They are especially good on dirt roads (very direct with the flat side profile).

I have a mate who had a Frontera - used BFG AT's and used to only get about 40,000 - 50,000Km's out of a set before they were shagged. Off road grip no better - on road noise similar. My brother also runs a Frontera but has fitted Cooper S/T's to it a few months ago. Has only done 10,000-15,000Km's on them as yet - so still early days - but he swears by them and reckons they are great!

I'd go the Cooper S/T's any day - especially if you are thinking of doing big trips only a couple of times a year but do a lot of bitumen driving. Certainly my next set of tyres will be the Cooper S/T's.

Couple of things to bear in mind though.
* Any AT or MT tyre won't have as much grip on the black top as a HT tyre - so long as you adjust your driving accordingly you won't have any problems.
* As previously mentioned - the Coopers do tend to cut up the blocks on the side of the tyre in the rough stuff off road - especially in rocky country. This is not a big problem and doesn't seem to effect their longevity or handling much. Small cuts are not a problem - but losing whole tread blocks is (but this only happens rarely - I have one block missing on my entire set of 5 tyres).
* Tyre pressures are crucial in attaining good tyre life. I am pretty religious about changing mine for the conditions as appropriate and monitoring them regularly. A pressure pump is one of the best investments you can make - get one (about $400 for a good one) and use it. Lower pressures where necessary - then put them up again when you need to. Look after your tyres and they'll look after you.

Go the S/T's I reckon - and have fun! Enjoy those long trips away. Cheers,
PradoBoy

tigger
I put a set of bfg mud terrains on before we went away at Easter, and found that after a few hard rocky tracks that it seemed to get a lot of chunks taken out of the blocks, as for road noise yes they are noisy but i just turn the radio up loader.
My mate has cooper muddies on his patrol and they didn`t suffer as bad as the bfg`s.
Good luck it is a hard decision
Cheers Tim

I had BFG T/A's on my 80 series and now run Cooper ST's on my patrol. On-road grip is very similiair, was suprised at how well the coopers hung on in the wet, as good if not better than the BFG's. And the Coopers definently get the nod for off-road grip by a decent margin.

BUT, the coopers are noteciably noiser on-road compared to the BFG's. I do not mind the road noise, especially given the noticeable off-road improvement.

If you do got the BFG's, make sure you get the USA made ones and not the jap ones. After 10 years of BFG's, my last set were the jap ones and their poor performance (tyre life - cracked casing with steel belts poking through) is what made me try the coopers. And I am very happy with the change so far (14,000kms)

Cheers

Captain

Hi All,

Look, I can only speak from my own experience (80 series, non turbo, loaded with remote touring extras, owned since new with 451 000 kms and still strong) but the BFG tyres are the only brand I've gone back to back with on this particular vehicle, having tried a few different brands/types but ditching them well prior to minium tread.

Currently on my 3rd set of BFG M/T and had 1 only set of BFG A/T's.
Best milage by far was from the BFG A/T's - no surprises there @ 120 000km for the set (5 off - 1 puncture 65% highway 25% fast dirt and 10% off road) - although i was alternating between a set of M/T's & the A/T's at the time.
M/T's require constant pressure altering and rotation to get good k's (best i've got was 80 000km's from a set of M/T's).

Curiously, I have found the current set of 'improved' new "KO" rubber, to be more suseptable to 'torn lug syndrome'. My driving style hasn't changed nor the load or tyre care factor - so my guess is as good as anyones!(these have run 56 000km's so far - 2 trips up the cape, 1 to fraser island, plenty of higway and fast dirt, most towing a trailer). Still, i suppose i can't complain.

ALTHOUGH - the $$$ now being asked for BFG's makes me re think the eternal question........recent investigation in Nth Qld (home) has lead me to perhaps try the Coopers A/T's [very good reputation] or ProComp A/T's [check out a cross section cut from the three and see the difference for your self......ProComp tyres are considerably (read:impressive) thicker in the side walls!?!]

If your driving doesn't warrent M/T tyres then dont consider them - unless looks and an abundance of $ are influencing factors - i guess even for me (paved road; dirt road; off road; no road!) a good set of A/T's would do the job with a minimum of fuss for over 90% of the time! If M/T's are absolutely the choice, then BFG's are bloody good and a darn sight quieter on the black top than anything else I've experienced.

Cheers
NICK