Thread: Cooper ST (Sure Trac) tyres - good & bad experiences wanted

We just completed 22000ks with a D3 on a new set of Cooper STs on 17" rims. We went through the Pilbara, the Gibb River Rd, plus 2000ks of other rough dirt.

After only 10,000k's and 500k's of dirt they were chipping REALLY badly. Most concerning, though, was a kind of crease that was appearing on the side wall, about an inch off the tread. I kept my eye on it, and really made sure the tyre pressures were right every time the terrain changed, but the crease steadily got worse.

Managed to make it back to Melbourne w/o incident (only got 1 flat on the Gibb, which was better than most vehicles) but the day after getting back we got flat in the driveway. Closer inspection showed that the crease mark was opening up some bigger cracks, and one of these was leaking (cause of the flat).

The Coopers dealer agreed to replace the tyres under warranty, but I still had to pay for the wear I'd used (!). He agreed that it appeared to be a molding fault and that the chipping was particularly bad. That said, the tyres were from 2 batches, over a year apart, so I don't think it was a batch issue - a bit worrying!

Incidentally the tread was down from 14.8mm to 10mm/8mm (front/back) in only 22,000k, which was pretty poor I thought.

I never had problems on my Disco2 with these tyres, but I wouldn't recommend them for Disco3 (245/70/R17).

Also, if you take the smart decision to throw away your OE wheel brace (a piece of ****e) and buy a socket bar, don't buy a dodgy Chinese one from AutoPro. Mine flew apart with barely any load on it and I had to dig out the Stanley one...

Hi folks
I've been running Cooper ST 265/70x16 on my P38A Rangie for about 6 months now and can't fault them.

On the bitumen they are marginally noiser than the Cooper HP's that were on previously, which were a lot noiser than the Michelins previous to those. Road handling is still pretty good but not as sure as the road-biased HP's.

Off-road the ST's have been brilliant. Never got stuck, never slid backwards or sideways (unintentionally), and only a few scary moments going downhill forwards when ABS decided to let the car go on and I wanted it to stop.

For me it was a toss-up between these and BFG-AT's - similar price and specs as far as I could tell. The thing that made me go with the ST's was the fact that so many of the people in the 4WD club I joined are fans of the ST and STT's.

Cheers, Paul.

Oh tats great, hope i can follow this...

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HID

To provide a comparison for tyre damage, this is the worst tyre damage on my BFG AT's after 60,ooo kms. They are well abused.
Its a small size, 235/75R15, and shallower tread depth than the larger verisons.



Cheers!