Cooper ST's - 255/85/16

[Nullifier]

I had decided to by these tires, but found that at the time they were backordered. Resorting to Plan B I purchased the BFG MT's which have been great. However, 2 days before the Expedition Trophy I sprung a leak by driving over a construction staple. Discount Tire is going to replace the tire under the road hazzard warranty, but it took 4 days because they didn't have any of the 255's in stock. I had to do a demanding 4-day offroad trip with a staple in a leaky tire!

Definately something to consider when choosing to get a non-standard size!

DO you not have a full size spare? You should be carring a spare that is matching size. Also what a plug or patch. Not a perfet solution but if you ran on it for 4 days something could have been done so stop the leak for sure!

[viatierra]

DO you not have a full size spare? You should be carring a spare that is matching size. Also what a plug or patch. Not a perfet solution but if you ran on it for 4 days something could have been done so stop the leak for sure!

Yes I've got the spare. The issue was I wanted a spare for the trip. If I mounted the good tire I would have been spareless before heading into the desert for 4 days. Probably something could have been done to fix the old tire. I don't have much knowledge or skills in that department. Discount wouldn't fix it because the staple made 2 holes... too much for one patch but too close together to fit 2 patches. Weird.

[jim65wagon]

Jim65wagon is running them on his Tundra and is real pleased with them. At 2nd Mononghahela meet in August they were quite impresive in their preformance. I'm sure he'll chip in on the subject shortly.

Chipping in: Love the ST's. I've had them on the truck since the first week of March. I've put 20,000 miles on them in that time. In those 20K they've been through everything but snow. Rain, gravel, dirt-tracks, rocks, mud and recently sand. The tires are as good as if not better than the BFG AT in all of it. Road noise is still a bit more, but they make up for that with their mud performance. The beach at the Outer Banks last week worried me a bit. We drove out didn't air down just took off down the tide line. Fine until we had to drive the sugary dry stuff above the line, then they dug in. Stopped, aired down and they were fine.
Last rotation I did not notice any significant chips or cuts in the tread or the sides. The siping is not full length anymore but it's still there just the ends of the sipes have disappeared.
I would buy these again. I may not get the 62,000 miles I got out of my BFG's but I should get at least 40 if not 45,000 out of them which is perfectly fine to me.

[slooowr6]

Anyone has any experience with Dunlop Radial Rover RVXT The review on TireRack seems positive, there is little review on this tire. I found one on mud and the owner seems like it.

I'm leaning towards these for the below reasons:
1) 32.8" less than Cooper ST 33.2". Might get away with no trimming at all.
2) More road oriented, less road noise and more comfortable.

Thoughts?

jim65wagon, thanks for the feedback!

[bigreen505]

Anyone has any experience with Dunlop Radial Rover RVXT

Sorry, no personal experience. I was/am interested in a set, but have not yet found much firsthand experience with them. The only real comments I can pass along are excellent street tire and very thin side walls. When pushed a bit, the owner admitted that he had not actually had any blowouts or slashed sidewalls, but they seem very thin. Some posts on TTORA suggest that they may be fragile as well as thin. I've also heard comments that tread wear is about 40,000 mi tops, but for some reason people expect a tire that wears like iron and sticks like glue. That mileage number suggests to me that the tires may be reasonably soft all the way through rather than supple in the beginning and rock hard after that.

I have all but settled on a different tire size, which has opened up many more possibilities so I have not looked into the Dunlop much beyond that.

[jim65wagon]

Anyone has any experience with Dunlop Radial Rover RVXT The review on TireRack seems positive, there is little review on this tire. I found one on mud and the owner seems like it.

I'm leaning towards these for the below reasons:
1) 32.8" less than Cooper ST 33.2". Might get away with no trimming at all.
2) More road oriented, less road noise and more comfortable.

Thoughts?

jim65wagon, thanks for the feedback!

just an fyi, my ST's on an 8" wide rim were just under 33 inches tall new. That's on the truck, 40psi street pressure.

[slooowr6]

I'm cheap, no budget for rims yet. The stock rim is 7" wide. I guess it'll squeeze the tires a little. I've to be careful on tire selection, wife love the way the truck rides currently. If after I put $1000 into tires and it becomes louder, uncomfortable and rubbing I'll never hear the end of it.

Dunlop has load rating D and weights 49lbs. It's only 2lbs lighter than a 265/75/16 BF T/A KO in load rating D. Would that really make the side wall weak? Or side wall strength is unrelated to the weight? Maybe 265/75/16 is the way I should go, plenty choice and guarantee to work.

[bigreen505]

Dunlop has load rating D and weights 49lbs. It's only 2lbs lighter than a 265/75/16 BF T/A KO in load rating D. Would that really make the side wall weak? Or side wall strength is unrelated to the weight? Maybe 265/75/16 is the way I should go, plenty choice and guarantee to work.

Like I said, no personal experience. I think it is easy to confuse a flexible side wall with a weak one, but one does not necessarily imply the other. FWIW the person who made those comments was running a 255/85 on a Tacoma and represents only one data point.

I took a trip with someone on the board running 33x10.5 BFG MTs on a Gen 2 4Runner and at 20 lb. they didn't even show a hint of bulge and continued to look fully inflated until about 15 lb. Mine showed a lot of bulge and were very supple at 20 lb. Are his better because of the stiffer side wall or are mine better because they are more supple? Not sure it matters.

[slooowr6]

Like I said, no personal experience. I think it is easy to confuse a flexible side wall with a weak one, but one does not necessarily imply the other. FWIW the person who made those comments was running a 255/85 on a Tacoma and represents only one data point.

I took a trip with someone on the board running 33x10.5 BFG MTs on a Gen 2 4Runner and at 20 lb. they didn't even show a hint of bulge and continued to look fully inflated until about 15 lb. Mine showed a lot of bulge and were very supple at 20 lb. Are his better because of the stiffer side wall or are mine better because they are more supple? Not sure it matters.

Read through your mod thread, you went with 265 at the end? Which one did you get? I might go this road at the end.

[bigreen505]

Read through your mod thread, you went with 265 at the end? Which one did you get? I might go this road at the end.

PM sent, I don't want to further pollute this thread.