I gave up on Cooper a long time ago. Couldn't keep them balanced or keep them from separating. Right now I am having good luck with Hankook.

 

These tires came on my truck. I'll look at the insides of mine. I like them just fine for the year and a half I've had them. Good in snow and mud as far as for what I need out of them. They do hum pretty good not he highway but I don't mind it. If I needed new tires I'm just gonna throw it out there I'd buy some good ole BFG all terrains. Great looking and functioning tire IMO unless you need a mud tire

 

ALL the 245/75 R16 E Coopers I've had, 2 sets, have cracked, separated and blown apart, you can't give me a set of those tires and I will forever suggest everyone I encounter to avoid them, they are hazardous garbage!

 

Yes, by all means, ignore those cracks, after all, they are superficial, FYI I am not towing, it's on a stripped 15 passenger van with one bench seat over the axle and NO passengers, so don't play the overloaded card on me!

 

Just a little shimmy in the steering, nothing important, belt separation is normal.

 

There is a wholesaler here who deals with fleet vehicles, they will not sell Cooper tires due to the failure rate I've been having, it is common with the heavy tires, I've had 2 different tread designs, the AT failed first, the belts under the tread started pulling away spitting a front tire, so I replaced them with the HT in figuring it was a design flaw, the sidewalls formed cracks, then blew apart. I bought them from a distributor who had a large turn over servicing fleet vehicles, I would have gone back to complain but no longer live in the area. When they start to get dull, get them off ASAP regardless of how much tread is left, explain to me how I had a G78 R14 on the back door of my 73E100 without a tire cover last year, that had a far better looking sidewall than anything current that reaches 5 years old, it appears to me the tire making process has changed, and not for the better, so much for with advances in technology comes better products!

 

Note that this is an old thread someone bumped.

I have been running cooper sideline tires, rebranded coopers. They are about eight or nine years old. They ride good but the tread is getting near the wear limit and my peace of mind limit is near also.

My 27 year old truck rides and drives better than a lot of trucks that are only a few years old.

I have thought that another set of coopers would be a good buy. Is there a quality issue here?

 

It came up as a related topic for a discussion earlier, I thought the guy posted it again, as I said, backing up with photos, they are garbage.

 

I have almost always run BFG AT 31 10.50 on my trucks. I really like those tires. The latest re-design doesn't look as good though. The last time I got tires I got Cooper AT3s, because the BFG has become overpriced in my opinion. They are almost 3 years old now, and so far I have no complaints. They seem slightly smoother on the highway than the BFG AT. I hope this purchase wasn't a mistake.

 

I'm with maples01 on this one.

We've had four different sets of cooper tires on four different vehicles and every single one of them was dry rotted, 2 had cracked sidewalls, and 5 of them had a broken belt, and this all happened within 3 years. Cooper is by far the worst tire I have ever used and you will never see another set on any vehicle I own.

Meanwhile we just replaced the 15 year old Firestone Destination M/T's on our 93. Only because they had too many nails holes from driving through the dump 5 days a week for those 15 years. They showed no signs of dry rot, no broken belts and they even still had decent tread. And this truck ways over 10k 50% of the time.

 

I had a cooper throw the rubber and tear the heck out of the front fender on my 2000 SD. I have had good luck with them years ago but don't buy them now.
A few years back, the rubber formulation was changed, pretty much industry wide. Probably due to some component the epa would no longer allow. I've had a lot of weather checking on tires since then. Had to take a set of Wranglers off that were about 6 years old because I just didn't trust them any more.

 

That tire is just plain worn out and should have been replaced thousands of miles ago and the front end checked over good. Running scabs like that is just asking for trouble anyway.

 

Maples, did you check the date codes on those tires? How old were they by the date codes?

 

^what he said. You always need to check the date code on tires. The rubber degrades as it sits in a warehouse. All of my family runs Cooper's on their diesel trucks, never had issues. Wear rates have been good too.

 

My exposure to Cooper has been positive. Cracking sounds like age to me too. No one I know keeps tires longer than 3 or 4 years, just drive too much. So for me, cracking at old age is a non issue, I'll run the tread off in 3. Our search and rescue trailer is pulled by a Duramax on ST Maxx, run hard. Local FS trucks run the same tire, they drive all over.