Tires...my achilles heel...

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Sinjin Eberle

Rank I
Launch Member

Contributor I

233
Durango, Colorado
Member #

9003

Hey there,

Recently joined, but a generally experienced overlander. Currently have a 2009 Tacoma, but have had other SUV's ranging from a 1977 International Scout (oh, how I wish I had kept it!), a 1998 Jeep Cherokee, and a Volvo XC90 (read...mistake.)

I live in Durango, Colorado, but do lots of driving for work and fun. Long drives in and across Utah and Arizona are common, and lots of both highway miles as well as pretty significant 4x4 offroad in the mountains of Colorado - so generally all purpose. (No rock-crawling, but some fairly gnarly passes around here, like Engineer, Cinnamon, etc in the San Juans)

A couple of years ago, as my stock tires were dying, I read a head-to-head tire review in Overland Journal, and the results of that review were that the Cooper Discoverer AT3 "won." So, I went with them. In the last two years, I have punctured or shredded four of them (at different times, so I am like rotating the entire set!). My tire shop jokingly tells me that I need to go with a 10-ply tire (like the Goodyear Wrangler Commercial tires) but since I spend lots of time on the highway, noise and ride matter.

On all my other trucks, I had BFG AT's and never had a problem (plus, they have a much more aggressive tread.) I see Michael (and many others) has been running the Mud Terrains, and now the KM3's are out (sorta).

I feel like I need a tougher tire, and one with more aggressive tread, than the Coopers. But would a mud tire be too much for my highway time? Eeeek!! Help??
 

NightCrawler

Rank VI
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Off-Road Ranger I

3,976
Moreno Valley, Ca
First Name
Steven
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DeLong
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7620

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I run the Cooper STT Pros on my rig and they are holding up very well on the highway...the noise level is much lower than other aggrieve tires. I have put 5K on them and they are wearing evenly with no irregularities...reminds me...I need to rotate the 5th tire into the mix.
 
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Scarab

Rank V
Launch Member

Off-Road Ranger I

1,845
Hastings - England
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Alex
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Barrett
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7686

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HUGE Cooper fan here, currently running LTZ Zeons and have been for about 3 years, put about 25k on them and they still have great tread. Would love to go cooper again but recently have been finding myself drawn to looking at other brands, the sidewalls of all the Coopers are degrading fast forcing me into looking into replacing them about 6 months before I'd planned to.

All 5 are looking like the sidewalls are just getting dry and going to crack, for want of a better term. I've absolutely loved these tyres from when I put them on and they still perform great but the speed at which they've gone from looking brilliant to looking shoddy has shocked me more than a little.
 
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soonersfan

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Off-Road Ranger I

2,672
Oklahoma City, OK
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Phillip
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McIntosh
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I am a Ridge Grappler fan boy. They are great and completely quiet on the road and I have been very impressed with their off road capabilities. I believe they are 10 ply too. Check out their customer reviews.
 
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ElGuapo

Rank III

Advocate II

I just went with the Falken Wildpeak AT3W's for my daily driver good aggressive tread pattern, 50k+ mile tread life and they are snow rated. I will be posting some picture later this week and probably doing a review as I put miles on and off road them.

Sent from my SM-G930V using OB Talk mobile app
 
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Sinjin Eberle

Rank I
Launch Member

Contributor I

233
Durango, Colorado
Member #

9003

I run the Cooper STT Pros on my rig and they are holding up very well on the highway...the noise level is much lower than other aggrieve tires. I have put 5K on them and they are wearing evenly with no irregularities...reminds me...I need to rotate the 5th tire into the mix.
Ha! Yeah! Cool...thanks a bunch!
 

Cort

Rank VI
Launch Member

Trail Blazer III

5,197
Grand Rapids
First Name
Cort
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Beard
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5247

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KD8GQL
STT Pros are awesome, I really liked them. My truck has BFG KM03s which are my favorite compromise tire I’ve ever had.
 

trikebubble

Rank V
Launch Member

Advocate I

2,522
Penticton, BC
Member #

1969

I am a Ridge Grappler fan boy. They are great and completely quiet on the road and I have been very impressed with their off road capabilities. I believe they are 10 ply too. Check out their customer reviews.
Another Ridge Grappler fan-boy here as well. Brilliant on-road manners, nice and quiet. Seem to handle the off-road stuff equally as well (or better) than my old KO2's. I can't comment on their overall longevity yet, but they do have a good chunky off-road look to them if that matters.
 

Sparky

Rank V
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Pathfinder I

1,798
San Jose, California
Member #

7971

Dang, good work man! I read that review as well. I'm curious what load rating your coopers are and what kind of failures they had?

As far as recommendations, in my experience MT's really suck on the road, especially in rain and snow (no better way of saying it). I thought my KM2's were ok until I switched to ST Maxx and haven't looked back. For a dedicated trail rig it's a different story, but for a daily I'd err on the side of traction performance. Does anyone know if @Michael uses his 80 as a daily? I'm still pretty new here. You can have MT's siped to increase road performance but it can also accelerate chunking offroad.

My recommendation would be to look for a heavy duty side-walled AT. Cooper's ST Maxx is built on their MT carcass, the new KO2 in a D or E load would also be a good choice. Toyo Open Country RT and Nitto Ridge Grappler's also come to mind. I'd just really hesitate to put MT's on a daily pickup, but that's me. Either way sounds like it's time to update your tires!