Cooper vs Michelin

Used to be a die hard Michelin buyer......for the last 6 years have bought nothing but the Cooper sub brand "Mastercraft" for multiple vehicles, at the recommendation of the brother in law who sells tires for a living. Large savings over anything made by Michelin along with excellent ride and treadlife. If you want to pay for the name, pay for it.

When we got our RV 9 years ago I put new Cooper SRM II tires on all the way around. They have been great tires and I am just now replacing them due to age. I had no problems with them and they still look like new, in spite of 4-5 trips to Disney and other treks across the country. I would have put them back on but it looks like they are not made anymore by Cooper. I am having Firestone Transforce HT tires put on this week.

Steve

Michelin is the only tire I'd put on our Motorhome. The first set lasted a few weeks shy of 7 years ownership, those were the LTX M/S. The DOT date put them at 7.5 years old. I planned to replace them in April, but we had a blow out on the inner dual and replaced all 6 two weeks earlier than planned with LTX M/S2. The old tires had 30,00 miles on them and would have easily gone another 30,000 if they weren't so old. Plenty of tread left.

When we had the blow out, the tire lost most of the tread. The motorhome handled just fine. It felt like I hit a pot hole instead of having a blow out. The only reason I knew it was a blow out was because I could hear the tire shreddings hitting the motorhome. I hit the brakes and pulled over like nothing happened. I've seen what happens when other motorhomes have had blow outs of the inner dual tire that weren't Michelin tires.

The XPS Rib is an excellent tire, but was too expensive for us. If we had a bigger/heavier Class A, we probably would have went with the XPS Ribs. The Goodyear G614 is a very good tire as well as the BF Goodrich Commerical T/As. If I couldn't have gotten the Michelin's the BFGs would have been my second choice.

-Michael

I now have Coopers on my one ton pickemup after running Toyos for 150k miles. The Coopers are quiet and have good traction, made in America. I like them a lot.

I have Michelin car tires on a Lexus and they are also excellent. If I have a problem I usually switch manufacturers.

Cooper's Discoverer and Michelin's LTX M/S (when marketed as OEM replacement) are targeted to the same market. Michelin's similar BF Goodrich Commercial T/A is probably a bit closer to the Cooper price point, as will be Firestone's Transforce and Goodyear's commercial Wrangler lines. You can go even cheaper with Cooper's commercial Mastercraft or Roadmaster lines, or any of number of branded imports. Or you can upgrade to Michelin XPS, Bridgestone Duravis, or something in Goodyear's R-series commercial lines.

One thing different about LTX in load range E, versus many lower cost OEM and replacement all-season LT tires in the same load range, is that the LTX gets an extra body ply. Other premium brands might have heavier belts, or Kevlar armor plies.

Different body construction, body weight, belt construction, tread thickness, tread designs all have an effect on durability, ride comfort, noise. But you don't find this out until you actually buy the tires and install them.

I tend to put my long-term relationships with my local tire dealers ahead of retail price points when choosing tires. I've run a lot of different Cooper models, different grades for different cars and trucks, because I had a great Cooper dealer who carried Michelin as his premium brand, Hankooks for price, Toyos for a performance market. Thus my minivan and SUV got Discoverers, sedans Trendsetters or Lifeliners, and the pickup I drove around town Mastercrafts replacing the cheap OEM Firestones.

But my Class C got Michelin all-steel XPS Rib to replace the OEM LTX M/S because I wanted an extra degree of tire carcass toughness for this "always fully loaded" application. It is probably overkill, the XPS is a tire body designed to have a long tread life and be retreadable a couple of times to get a couple hundred thousand miles over a ten year or longer life. What mattered to me was the design for a ten year or longer carcass life.

Since my Cooper dealer has switched to Bridgestone/Firestone as primary supplier, I face different choices for replacement tires. Should I ever wear out the XPS Ribs (unlikely at my age and RV usage) I could go to Bridgestone Duravis on the RV for hard use, or Firestone Transforce if I only do local trips.

If you plan to replace your RV tires every 3-5 years, as is often advised here, you might go with the cheaper tire models which will have lighter tire bodies and maybe less original tread. A tire with lighter tread will be less likely to throw the tread if you tend to run underinflated.

I am about to replace 6 tires on my C and am considering Hankooks. Wondering if anyone has done this and what they think of them. They are considerably cheaper than Michelin.

If your rear axle is at or over the max weight, consider using one of these tires,

There is a new tire out there (I'll refer to it as the Euro C). it is designed for cargo vans.

The Continental version is called the Vanco Four Season. The size carries the C after the designation. Much higher weight rating than a standard LT tire. There only a few manufacturers producing the tire.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=VancoFourSeason

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Nexen Roanian CT8. Top four tire sizes in the chart at this link are the Euro C sizes (fourth down is your 225/75R16C)

https://www.nexentireusa.com/tires/suv-light-truck/roadian-ct8-hl

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Michelin Agilis Alpin is about the only other brand available in the US in the Euro C size

https://www.michelinman.com/upload/miche........us/specifications/specs-agilis-alpin.pdf

The Agilis® Alpin® is designed specifically to fit the latest generation of European-style cargo vans, and provides both 3PMSF certification for winter usage, along with excellent wet/dry traction and wear resistance to allow continued running in the summer months.
The Agilis® Alpin® is designed specifically to fit the latest generation of European-style cargo vans providing excellent winter grip in cold weather without compromising wet/dry traction and wear resistance allowing year round usage.

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These three tires (in the 225/75R15C size) all have the 3195 lb rating at 83 psi (single) and 3085 lb (dual installation), and have a load index and speed rating of 121/120R which is suitable to your MH.

To compare, the standard LT225/5R16E tire you are probably using now, has a single wheel rating of 2680 lbs and a dual wheel rating of 2470 lbs (at 80 psi inflation)

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Not sold in the US market but available in Europe and Mexico is the Michelin Agilis Alpin Camper tire. Tread is designed for Motor Home use.

https://www.michelin.co.uk/tyres/michelin-agilis-camping#tab-tyres-benefits

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These Euro C tires are mandatory on the Ram Promaster as a standard LT doesn't have the weight rating necessary.

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Another alternative is to switch to a 17.5 inch rim and the much heavier tire that is used on it.

https://ricksontruckwheels.com/wheels-ford-e350450.php

Charles

CharlesinGA wrote:
These Euro C tires are mandatory on the Ram Promaster as a standard LT doesn't have the weight rating necessary.

Is that because the Ram Promaster chassis isn't available in a dually rear tire version?

FWIW: As for rear duallies on the rear of a motorhome, I'm all for them in the rear of a cutaway van based Class C motorhome because of the safety they provide by offering a form of "tire redundancy".

For example, once we had one rear tire of a dually set go flat in our Class C motorhome. I was able to keep going very slowly for around 5 miles with only one good tire on the one side in the rear in order to reach both a safe place to pull off, plus pull right into a tire repair facility. Granted, the one good LT tire (carrying 80 lbs. of pressure) was drastically overloaded while doing this, but at least I was able to keep going slowly. That temporarily overloaded Michelin LT tire went on for another 4-5 years providing good service.

For a heavily loaded van/motorhome with only singles in the rear when going at highway speeds, a flat in the rear could result in a very dangerous situation.

Thanks for everyone’s inputs. I decided to go with the Cooper tires. I have about 100 miles on them...so far so good.