I LOVE my Cooper's..........................Not

Sir Kev,

I had Coopers once, but never again.

I experienced the same problems as yourself and when I went to the retailer and showed them the problem, they told me it wasn't warrantable.

Their reason was "they are not covered for off road use"

Below is an extract from their website regarding warranty

"Who isn’t Eligible for the Warranty?

* Taxi or Hire vehicles
* A participating dealer has the right to refuse or vary the warranty period based on their discretion, or because of the particular use of the vehicle.
* The mileage warranty is only applicable to Capital City purchases. When used in the same conditions, Cooper Tires will usually outlast most competitor brands, however, some areas in Australia will cause rapid wear beyond normal use with any brand, that is why the mileage warranty is restricted to Capital Cities."

How good is that for a warranty.

Anyway, back to my experience. When I was in Brisbane, I spoke to Terry Smith at Moorooka who is the importer of Coopers into Australia and he backed up the dealer in his assessment of the damage, BUT, he offered me 2 Coopers caps as a consolation. Told him where to fit his cap.

As my tyres were only about 15K old and one tyre was particularly bad, he finally relented and sold me a replacement for that tyre at 1/2 price. Very generous.

Needless to say, when that set of tyres needed replacement, I didnt buy Coopers again.

Cheers,

Cruiser .

Kev, You are not the first and wont be the last to complain, i have had about 6 sets of BFG A/T's all no problems like that and the BFG's are cheaper. The only problem is when they get up around 100,000ks on them, they start to get a bit hard to balance.. Go the BFG's!!! Michael

I ripped a whole block off one of mine mate, but they did "glue" it back on and its still there. Gee I was hoping to sell you mine hahahaha.
What to buy next, I have a set of MT MTZs on the MU and at $320 each I won't be getting them again and seeing I don't do a lot of hard core off roading any more I think I will probably try these Wide Conqueror AT they are a LT grade and at about $165 each I think they are worth a try, Have them as spares on both the MUs at the moment. We had a similar tyres on the MU Wizard for 40K and still hard plenty of tread left. So horses for courses, I don't believe I need to spend $320 a tyre an more.

Cheers Bruce

Gday Kev,

Don't worry about the huge chunks off the Coopers - its normal :-))) Sounds like you made the mistake of taking them offroad!

My choice for ATs at present (it changes almost daily :-))) is for either the Goodyear Silent Armour or the Bridgestone D694LT. They are both very chip resistant on the outback gravel. I've seen the BFG ATKO chip a fair bit, and friends with Mickey Thompsons are complaining about thin sidewalls and chipping on outback tracks.

Haven't heard anything bad about Maxxis, but don't know anyone who's given them a fair belting.

I'm now running the same size rims as yours, and have upsized to the 285/75R16 in the Bridgestones.

Cheers
phil

Sir Kev. Sorry you had a bad run. Mine have been great, no trouble at all. I do not run mine below 30psi in the rocky country, a couple of those photos could be and look like what you would expect from low pressure damage. Maybee thats the problem - just a thought. Cheers Tony

Just another name for overpriced and over rated. Always been rubbish and still havent changed by the look of it.
Kumho gives as good as Cooper as do most others.

Ahhh Kev me old mate I am going to have to agree as well. The Poojero came with Cooper ATR'S on it when I got it. They still have around 70% tread on them and looked brand new. Went out the other week, dropped pressure ect, no spinning of wheels on rocks ect and guess what........they are chipped to the bleep house. I won't be replacing them

Cheers Stefan

Before I start I want it to be known that I have three BFG's waiting to go on the Prado. I know I need 4 but one at a time.
Beginning of last year I bought a second hand Prado with 70K on the clock and fitted with Cooper STT. Noisy b-----ers! However we took off for Birdsville and into Lawn Hill finished up in Cooktown and back home to SA. No issues with tyres, nary a flat and still looking good.
This year after much agonising about whether I should replace before a trip to Darwin via Oodnadatta Chambers Pillar I decided to just go and did. Arrived in Darwin and they still looked good so headed down to Cordillo Downs Innamincka Tibooburra and hit the black stuff again at Balranald. From there to Melbourne and back home. Tyre problems -- zip, not a thing, sure they are worn but no lost lugs, no cracking and no flats. Is there enough left to do another dirt trip? No, but I would drive back to Melbourne or similar on the bitumen. Now I'm not going to replace with Coopers but sometimes I wonder why.
M.

I got caught with them too .... NEVER AGAIN!

We had no probs with the stt's except for a few little divits etc but that was expected, but either they do ya good or they do ya bad.....they did you bad and as good....

go figure hey!

my first set of ST,s did 60k, CSR ,GRR. Simpson x2 , Transcontinental railway line and many other trips .
2nd set did 11k and showed radial cracks ,the local dealer didn,t hesitate to replace them , can,t ask for better service than that
just bought another set .
mechpete

Thats no good.

I am on my third set of Cooper ST's. Have travelled some very ordinary roads and to date have not let me down....while other brands have let my fellow travellers down.

I so no reason for me to change, as they have been the best tyres that I have ever driven on...and still no flats after 170K in total kilometres.

Good luck with your next purchase.

Brett.....

Kev,
I’m very happy with my Duelers 31x10.5x15 on the cruiser.
I admit they’ve done a lot of black top work, run at 36psi. I also run that pressure in the forest trails.
They’ve done about 40k and look about half worn, maybe a bit less.
I’m starting to think it’s all about advertising. Get your brand out there in the media and get people talking about it and others will think they are the ducks guts.
Don’t get me wrong. Some have had a good run with them, as you yourself have heard.
To me there are so many variables that sometimes the results can get clouded.
Here is an example.
Many years ago I had an XW Fairmont, 351, TopLoader, 9’ lsd She sat on the deck, race suspension, and I was told that Goodyear ZR’s 255x15 would be the go.
Now 15 old years ago $300 a tyre was big money and you would expect some sort of value out of that kinda money.
Sure, it handled like a train on tracks. Reality. They were only good for 15000 km’s
The car was too heavy for them.
Maybe that’s something to look at.

Sorry to hear you’ve had a bad run with them, Kev.

http://www.coopertires.com.au/cooper/warranty.htm

Check this out.
I know Kev's aren't under warranty, but check out the small print (and large print) in the warranty/disclaimer sectionn.

Hey Sir Kev.

Damn coopers ... lol ... half the country loves them and the other half hates them.

Have heard of and seen plenty of the problems your pics show. Mainly the chipping.

Have successfully run Hankook A/Ts over the last 10yrs ... Not the best in the world but overall quite acceptable.

BFG would be my first choice if the wallet wasnt in control of the brain.

Like you ... thinking hard about the Maxxis brand. Not expecting to get massive distances out of them but the reports from those I know with them ... are all positive - and are worth a try at the price. Most surprisingly the bighorns, even with that big open tread pattern, still hang on quite well in the wet.

Looking at a Maxxis Trepadors in the coming weeks. Have a tighter pattern than the Bighorn and better protected sidewalls. If not them, the Hankook M/T will get a trial.

Main trouble with tyre choosing, is that no one seems to do the exact same things you do in a vehicle, so as to give a fair assessment ... LOL

We had a set or ST's.

Very good in mud, quite acceptable on road (no major noise).

I loved them

UNTIL

We did a bit of very of very modest, dry country, hilly, rocky stuff. Small chunks were missing of the lugs which did not inspire any condidence to try them any harder.

I wouldn't use them again.

Jim.

Cooper Discoverer STT

I discovered that they weren't meant for offroad....lol

Expensive exercise

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Cheers

Hi alll,
The Cooper supporters seem strangely quiet on this post. Why is that ;-)
Doug

I've had Cooper AT's then Cooper ST's then ATR's

The AT's dropped lugs and began to crack. After complaining loudly I was given a pro-rata change over and went to the ST's. They cracked around the side wall and then they got a recall so I went to ATR's.

The ATR's were the best by far but gave a very stiff ride and are renowned for 'train tracking' on the bitumen..always having to correct the steering.

They were all on a GU partol

Now I have a TD100. It came with BFG AT KO's. I just replaced them with another set of the same last week.

The BFG's seem to not suffer any of the issues that the Cooper's did.

Hullo Sir Kev,

greetings from the West.

I have used BFGs up to this point. With the exception of one set of Coopers. Wasn't happy with them.

I've read a lot of support on this Forum for D694s and then I saw this photo on another Forum.

Image Could Not Be Found

It shows a BFG A/T on top and a D694 on the bottom. It's just got more of everything that matters. These will be going on the Cruiser next time.

cheers and all the best to Sam.

Hi Sir Kev,
We are up to 52,300 Km so far on our MT MTZ's towing a camper trailer around oz. Done some very serious work (even while towing). Yes they are worn and have some chunks missing but given what I've done to them no wonder. When setting up for the trip was addvised not to touch coopers as they are set for amerian conditions (believe it or not there not the same as here lol). I thought theMT's wore abit fast to start with but now after 52,000 kms I am very happy and would buy them again. Had BFs once, not again. Side walls kept bulging. Hope you find something that you are happy with.

Kidsandall
Josh

Well here's my 2 bob's worth, i put cooper st's on my 60 series cruiser (open diffs, no lockers), they did outlast their 80,000 klm warranty but what really impressed me was when i was climbing a very steep mountain, i was running road pressure because i didnt realise just how steep this mountain was going to get and by this time i definately didnt want to stop for anything, then murphy's law tapped me on the shoulder, in front of me was a very steep incline that freaked me out, it was about 4 meters high and i thought there is no way i could do it without lockers, but already being on a very steep slope and not wanting to stop i thought my only chance was to pin it and hope for the best and yes i made it, i was truely amazed and have no doubt it was only because of my tyres. Then i bought a prado that was wearing hankook at's that looked more like very very cheap street tyres, i couldnt wait to wear out these pathetic looking tyres so i would have an excuse to buy decent ones, well, i didnt do much offroad stuff with them tyres but the bloody things just would not wear out, they were still going strong at 60,000 klm's but fitted some cooper stt's for a 12,000 trip around NT and across the gulf, they performed excellent, no flat's and no problems although they did wear more than i expected, i think because of excessive chipping, i think the st's would have been a better choice for the trip. Ok, thats just my personal experience but the FACT is....ALL tyres chip, all tyres can have lug's torn off them, all tyres can crack, all tyres can get side wall damage, all tyres can get punctured and go flat, blah blah. And.....just because 2 or 200 different tyre brands travel on the same track doesnt mean they all hit the same tyre destroying object. Do i like cooper tyres?...hell yeah, do i think they are the best value tyre?...hell no.

Hi Kev,

Have had a good look at my Goodyear MTR's that did much the same tracks as you did at Pyrenees and there is not a mark on them. They have around 45,000km on them now and are looking real good.

I have Cooper ATR for general use and am very happy with them for bitumen and sand but anything more demanding than that and the MTR's go on the Prado.

I know what I will be replacing the MTR's with and that is more of the same.

Muddy

Kev
I have these on at the moment, performing very good.

Yokohama

My 2nd Choice

.

Kev
I have 4 , 285*75*16 Cooper ST's in the shed. waiting to be picked up by my Nephew.
He likes them. I don't .. they were on the Patrol, when I rescued the poor thing from a Toyota Dealership.(what an embarisment for the patrol) And to make matters it had these Cooper Tyres on ,,, sidewall ripples, and what a hard ride. The Coopers give a ride from hell.

Now got the BFG. AT's, and so far love them.

Cheers Mate
Bucky


ps.... sorry about the "yota" joke, couldn't resist

Sir Kev,

I'm not wishing to prolong the whole tyre argument, I just have a question for my own benfit.

Can you read the date stamp on the tyre?
I had a set of new Mickey T's years ago that when installed new, were actually 6 years old.
(I will never go back to that shop again)

I'm intrigued as to whether or not you had an old aged set???

P.S. I run BFG muds on and off road for 11 years and have never had a problem. Driven most tracks, towed and played.
Can be noisy after 60 thousand k's but the patrol has a radio!!!

Brian

I wonder how many people talk themselves into hating certain tyres/vehicles etc... by what they read on these forums?
It also amazes me how, like on this forum, people seem to love their BFG tyres, have no trouble with them and recommend them. But if you look at the trip planning notes on the LCOOL forum for their big trips (Madigan line, Hay River, Simpson etc..), which they seem to plan meticulously, it is stated NO BFG tyres due to the problems they have had with them in the past.
Chris

I run STT's and have had no problems with them so far.

I am 15000 km. into my first set of cooper ST's and they look even worse than yours.

Kev!, Just to make you laugh. I am running standard rims 750x16 Dunlop road Grippers, Been on for four years and up to the 120,000km mark, two punctures, and the vehicle has always got a load on. Regarded as cheap, skinny. crap. tryres but i am smiling about all this ...lol.


Cheers axle.

Been there done that ..same problem...NEVER again, overpriced garbage that from my experience just won't cut the mustard here in oz.

I reckon I have read just about every thread on tyres on multiple forums and without going to Mud tyres, just about all brands of AT's seem to have at least some bad press.

I'm sure there's the issues of inappropriate tyre pressure for varying circumstances that may see a particular brand of tyres slammed.

I relation to BFG's v Coopers, these seem to be the most 'popular' tyre sold, so there are bound to be more people complaining about them.

I have run BFG AT's some years ago and had a good run out of them, but they weren't much chop on slippery tracks. Currently have the Road Grippers mentioned above and have put them through their paces and they have been great all except for their life: 40K km.

Replacing them in the morning with Pro Comp At's 265/75x16 (though I was tempted with the Xtreme MT's which are said to be fairly quiet on the back top and excellent in the rocks and slop. But the price was a little too high and I knew they would wear about 20% faster than the AT's. Also even though I do a bit in the High Country, still cant justify a muddy as the car is a daily driver also.

Only time will tell............... No back to reading tyre threads.............................

Cheers,

Mark

Not sure if this will add anything to the discussion, but here goes:

I have had 1 set of BFG A/T's, 2 sets of Cooper ST's and 1 set of Cooper STT's.

The BFG's lasted well but chipped badly around the edges after a few trips in the Vic high country and then a big trip in the desert.
Both sets of ST's did the same, but also threw lugs.
The dealer said it was because I was too agressive and didn't lower tyre pressure enough. Don't agree with the agressive comment, but the tyre pressure is valid, however I have now read in this thread that you shouldn't lower them too much - ie not less than 20 psi.
Tried STT's and found them to be fantastic when fairly new. A few cuts here and there, but I did go over rough stuff so it is expected, but no chipping and no lugs thrown or peeling off. They are magic on loose gravel and you can actually feel them stick to the road - BFG's and ST's just can't compare.

The only problem that I now have with the STT's is that after 60k, they are badly scalloped and make a hell of a noise on bitumen. Dealer said it is because of faulty suspension and that they haven't been properly rotated. Front shockers were replaced when I had ST's, so I don't think that would be the problem. Lack of rotation may be the fault.

Would I go back to STT's? If I was doing a lot of heavy 4wding - yes without a doubt and I would make sure that my mechanic rotated the tyres every 5k! However as I probably won't be doing as much heavy stuff anymore, I will probably go for BFG's or similar.

Just wish I knew why the STT's scallop so badly on the Patrol?

I've ran BFG AT's on various vehicles since 1993. I've chipped them, I had blow outs with them, I've had numerous sidewall stakes with them, I've had a couple of them do tread bulges and a couple of them do tread delaminations.

I'm currently contemplating Coopers. I was talking to the Coopers bloke at the 4wd show here in Perth on Saturday about getting a cheaper tyre price without the glorified warranty as I know it will be voided as soon as I get out bush.

So do I stick with the beast I know or go with the one I don't? By what's been said above and my own experience there appears to be no difference. I guess it will come down to price.

Hi Kev.

I would agree with coopers being the worst tyre I have put on a 4wd.
We do allot of dirt driving up here in Mount Isa. Hot roads and tracks.
They don't like it. I think I have more plugs than tyre.
Never again.

Rob

Typical Coopers ............most over rated tyres EVER.

I refused to buy them because of their warranty....... black top city boys only....basically if you go off road they wont warrant.

threads like this just prove how sensible a decision not to waste my money on them it really was.

BFG beat them hands down

jeez kev, is this a new record for thread view?