None of those tires are explicitly "winter tires" though. They're AT tires that can be driven in winter.
Any long term reviews on Cooper Discoverer At3 4s?
- Thread starter dan_erickson
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I've had some AT3s on my light 3/4 ton van since August 2017.
30x9.5x15's
I rotate them frequently.
They are wearing very well, with about 20K miles on them, but they are noisy, and more so after a long highway drive cross country, especially around 45mph. After a bunch of around town driving, this noisy at 45mph, fades a bit, but overall still noisy.
I am not a tire scrubber. I rarely turn the wheel when the rig is not moving. I see lots of people complain of poor tire life and these same people turn the wheels lock to lock without moving forward or backwards. They leave little tire rubber 'snow angels' on the pavement wherever they go, and could be hard accelerators and hard brakers, which eat up tire tread much quicker than one who has a different driving style and does not have to do any tight quarters parking jobs regularly.
30x9.5x15's
I rotate them frequently.
They are wearing very well, with about 20K miles on them, but they are noisy, and more so after a long highway drive cross country, especially around 45mph. After a bunch of around town driving, this noisy at 45mph, fades a bit, but overall still noisy.
I am not a tire scrubber. I rarely turn the wheel when the rig is not moving. I see lots of people complain of poor tire life and these same people turn the wheels lock to lock without moving forward or backwards. They leave little tire rubber 'snow angels' on the pavement wherever they go, and could be hard accelerators and hard brakers, which eat up tire tread much quicker than one who has a different driving style and does not have to do any tight quarters parking jobs regularly.
All the 3PMSF symbol means is it passes the tests required to earn that rating. Cooper calls the AT3 4S an all season tire... if it was a winter tire they’d sell it as such.
Have at ‘er! 
One more thing about running 3PMSF ( Moutain Snowflake) tires only in the winter. I know it’s a personal decision whether you want to have a 2nd set of tires around, but the functionality of “winter tires” depends highly on thread depth. If you are are wearing them out in the summer, they will be that much less functional every subsequent winter. If it’s a storage or convenience issue than so be it, but otherwise, I take them off in the spring and don’t put needless wear on them in the summer.
But you could buy much more effective winter tires if you're going to run separate winter tires.
Blizzaks, for example. And run the AT the rest of the year. Or HT tires.
Once you have a Mountain Snowflake designation, the rest is window dressing and marketing. However, to check this out purchase a durometer and check the hardness of the rubber at temps below 7 degrees C. (45 F)
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Do the durometer test and make your own decision.
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I had Cooper AT/W's on my Sierra a few years ago. Ran them year around for a little over 50,000 miles with no abnormal wear. Rotated about every 7500 miles and kept them around 32-34 PSI. They were a good tire and thought about going with again but decided to go with the Falken A/T3W's when it was time to replace. Reviews were good and I got them for a great price. I have about a little over 50,000 on the Falkens now and they still have a good 10,000 left on them. Both of these tires had the 3PMSF symbol but the Falken's appear to be wearing a little better. Highly recommend the Falken AT3W as an alternative to the new Cooper AT3 4S.
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The Cooper Discovery are great tires from my experience. We have used them in the past they do good and I like the white lettering too. We are currently running the Cooper Evolution on our Escape they came on it and they are going great too the tires grip well in the rain from my experience.
Here is a video of the Cooper AT3 4S against a couple of other tires. Pretty non scientific and they deflated the tires some. Having said that the AT3 4S did pretty well. Enjoy.
The ratings chart of A/T tires that was posted is interesting to me. I've owned a set of BFG A/T K02 tires. Contrary to the rating given them, I found them to be terrible on ice. The BFG A/T K02 would be my choice for dry desert terrain , though.
Also contrary to the chart, I have a set of the Yokohama A/T G015's in LT 265/70R17 currently. They are better in my experience on ice than the BFG K02's.
Also contrary to the chart, I have a set of the Yokohama A/T G015's in LT 265/70R17 currently. They are better in my experience on ice than the BFG K02's.
Tests are always subjective and really can only be done when the all the tires are new. All the tires had the mountain snowflake and in Canadian Tires’s eyes were On/Off Road Winter tires.
Not sure why you want me to step in here. BUT:
The Mountain/Snowflake symbol is indeed the result of exceeding a test. But it doesn't tell you how much it exceeded.
There was a proposal by the Canadian government to expand the testing (and new symbols). This didn't fly because the proposal had both snow traction and ice traction tied together - and what works for snow traction doesn't always help ice traction.
