Cooper Tires Awful! Most recalled 2013-2018

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Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
I would bet most "road gators" are retreads/recaps-that's why they seem to come off in long strips.
Allstate disagrees. ...and they say around 70% are from non-retreaded tires. https://blog.allstate.com/dont-let-road-gators-bite/
I like what Allstate said about 2/3 of all blow-outs being caused by low pressure too. That leaves only 1/3 of blow-outs caused by tire defects, and even some of those were likely the result of being weakened by previous encounters with sharp objects.

Hope folks don't think I'm picking on Cooper (& Continental). Just going where the recall data says to go, thats all.

Another piece of evidence is online Consumer Reviews. Those are unreliable, UNLESS there are a lot of them. Thats why the cheap Walmart Solar (Sumitomo) tires impressed me with 808 reviews at above a 4/5 average score. They must have been selling these for a long time. Cheap tire, yet most people like them, so they can't be that bad.

Still, you probably can't go wrong with any name-brand tire since the NHTSA and on-line complainers keep them all in line.
OK, maybe Cooper & Continental haven't gotten the memo on that, but all other brands seem to be OK.

If 9 years ago is still the state of affairs, LingLong tires may be crossed off the list too. A cheap tire that performed terribly back in 2009. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/ling-long-l688-page-3 .... which is an example of what we fear: Saving some money on tires might mean really bad performance.
 
I like Cooper tires for the truck; never considered them for Passenger Car.

Neither the Coopers I have on the Ram or the Continentals I have on the PT Cruiser are on the list.
 
Yesrs ago, it was probably decades ago, one of the car magazines did a destructive test on numerous tire brands. They spun tires at speed and increased the load on it with a large roller until they failed. As I recall the conclusion was that some tires came completely apart while others lost air but stayed together, increasing the chances of coming to a controlled stop. Maybe such a test has been done recently, would be interesting.
 
… hydroplaned like a turbo beaver

I just spit vanilla shake all over my keyboard. That's funny right there.

I had Kumho's, they were good. I have Coopers on the wife's T&C. A very good tire IMO, wearing evenly and well, good in the rain. I have Conti's on the tow rig, F250 SuperDuty. Best tire I've ever run on a tow vehicle.
 
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I've had a couple of sets of Coopers over the years and they were okay for the cheap tires that they were.
Good wearing and okay if not great in rain and snow.
I'd buy Cooper again if I needed I set of cheap tires.
 
The Mastercrafts on our truck have always served us well. The F250 is on her second set and going strong. Put a set of Bridgestone Duelers on once and had to sell them after 1,000 miles. They drove horribly.

I've never been a fan of Kumhos...been through two sets. If I'm buying car tires, then Perellis are usually my first and last stop.
 
NO Kumho's for me. They weather cracked just lick Michelin, unlike Michelin they also started loosing air.

Never again.

Rod
 
Originally Posted By: ragtoplvr
NO Kumho's for me. They weather cracked just lick Michelin, unlike Michelin they also started loosing air.
I just had Michelins get slow leaks. 10 psi per week slow, to where I couldn't find the leak. ... Tried latex tire sealer but for some reason it couldn't find the leak either. ........ I had 8 on 2 cars, same tire on same wheel for all. 3 out of the 8 developed very, very slow leaks. (I'm not talking about any visible puncture.)
The Michelins were $180 tires. All were about 3 years old, 30k miles each. I put all the bad Michelins on one car, then got the Kumho Ecsta 4x II's put on that one car.

Conclusion: All tires can, and might, have problems. We really don't know how often any particular brand of tire will get those slow leaks.
 
Originally Posted By: SirTanon
What's worse? A company that has frequent recalls but an overall safe track record, or a company that is responsible for many crashes and deaths as a result of not issuing a recall or acknowledging a problem quickly?

I'll stick with my Coopers.


+1
Never forget the Goodyear G159 fiasco!
 
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RyanY, what you and SirTanon don't understand is that the NHTSA issues most recalls. Its not voluntary from "do-gooder" tire makers as SirTanon claims. Its from complaints and tracking the feds do.
 
I have had several sets of various Cooper tires over past 30+ years of driving and they have all been very good. I recently put a set of Goodyear ComfortTred on my Grand Marquis. They are wearing quite well but keep losing balance about every 5,000 miles. Never had any tires do this before. They just start developing a vibration and shake at highway speeds that were not there before. Have them rebalanced and good for about another 5,000 miles. Nearly 20,000 miles on them now and shake is coming back again.

My Sable I bought Cooper CS5 Ultra Touring tires and so far they are awesome. Ride is a bit stiffer which I prefer. Not punishing stiff but noticeably stiffer than the General Altimax Rt43 they replaced. Handling is great in dry and so far very good in rain too. Still to new to know how they wear but the Sable tends to eat tires.
 
I'll buy a Cooper tire without a second thought, they've always given me great service.
 
I have totally switched my tire alliance to General's. I hated them 30 years ago. Love them now. Good tires for a good price. I won't buy another Goodyear. I still like Michelin's. I am indifferent to Conti's and Kumho's. Real world results are what dictate my tastes. I may even try out Goodyear again in 30 years after the foul taste finally leaves.
 
strange, I've had pretty good luck with Cooper tires, not that i've bought a lot of them but i had 2 sets of Discoverers on my explorer and I still have a set of ST's on my pickup.


the Roadrunner brand at Fleet farm (cooper made) that my parents had on there explorer didn't wear very well and had some issues with one tire that started leaking in several spots like pinholes and then ended up replacing those with Dextero tires from walmart which i'm pretty impressed with so far.
 
Most of the tires on the recall list are the same model in different sizes, so one recall makes it look like a brand is worse than it is. Also, the majority of tires listed appear to be truck/SUV/all-terrain tires where tread separation is more common. Personally, I have had good luck with Cooper tires. The brand that I have had the worst luck with defects is General (Continental), also well represented on the recall list.
 
Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
RyanY, what you and SirTanon don't understand is that the NHTSA issues most recalls. Its not voluntary from "do-gooder" tire makers as SirTanon claims. Its from complaints and tracking the feds do.


That is an excellent point, and I probably should have mentioned that. The reason for my reference to the Goodyear fiasco is not because Cooper products are overall better/worse than others, but because Goodyear has not handled that situation very well (from a consumer perspective). As far as I know, Cooper has not tried to cover up their faults.
 
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Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
RyanY, what you and SirTanon don't understand is that the NHTSA issues most recalls. Its not voluntary from "do-gooder" tire makers as SirTanon claims. Its from complaints and tracking the feds do.


Ah ..... Mmmmm ..... not exactly.

If a manufacturer wishes to issue a recall - on their own with no push from NHTSA - then they can do so and NHTSA will assist. The only thing NHTSA wants to know is 1) the reason for the recall, 2) what products are affected, 3) how are people going to be contacted, 4) what is the remedy and 5) what percent of the affect products have been corrected (asked about 3 to 6 months after the recall has been issued.)


If the company requests the recall it is called a "Voluntary Recall" - even if NHTSA insisted. Only occasionally does NHTSA issue its own recall - and then it is called a "Mandatory Recall". NHTSA does not like to do that as they have to justify their actions and that takes a lot of work. It is so much easier for NHTSA to pressure the company to do the recall "voluntarily".

Most recalls are voluntary - in fact I can't think of any that weren't - meaning NHTSA has been quite successful at convincing the companies to do so.

Because of how well this has worked and how well NHTSA has interacted with most companies, recalls are now viewed in a much better light and a company is very much more likely to issue a recall than ever before - and some do so where before they wouldn't.

So I would be very careful criticizing a company for the amount of recalls they have issued. A lot depends on how the individual company views this.



To see how this could work in reverse:

Originally Posted By: RyanY
...... Never forget the Goodyear G159 fiasco!


Here is a good example of people drawing conclusions without knowing the facts.

First is that the Goodyear G159 was a short haul tire - in-town delivery. It was never intended to be used on RV's.

Second is that Goodyear doesn't supply tires directly to the RV manufacturers. What probably happened is that the bare chassis was supplied to the RV converter with whatever the chassis manufacturer put on the chassis - and since the chassis is normally used in short haul situations ......

Third, is that Goodyear has been supplying NHTSA with return data since the 2008 - and those tires were produced before that.

And NHTSA is only investigating. I suspect they are doing so as a CYA move - to see if they missed something (Historical note: The Ford/Firestone situation in 2000/2001 resulted in a lot of painful scrutiny into what and how NHTSA does what it does, and they do not want that to happen again!)

And here's where it relates to my remarks above.

I'll bet the Goodyear, in the pre 2008 timeframe (remember, that was just after the HUGE Firestone recall) was cautious about issuing recalls and felt that a tire supplied to a chassis manufacturer who in turn supplied the chassis to an RV converter - that it was both the chassis manufacturer's and the RV converter's responsibility to properly equip their vehicles with appropriate tires - AND - since so much time had elapsed, and contacting the owners of said vehicles would be near impossible, that there was no point in issuing a recall.
 
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