Cooper tire failure at 65mph - now what?
Bought 6 of the COOPER DISCOVERER AT3 LT235/80R-17 for our 2014 Ram DRW in April 2017 before our 13,000 mile AK trip with extensive gravel to Inuvik, etc. After that trip we were generally not too imp...
Forum Discussion
Sure nice that it held air!
Generally I've had good luck with Coopers. You can try for warranty, but it mostly won't be worth much. You have a warrantable failure it appears, but it's a $200 tire that looks like it might be reimbursed about $60.
Treadwear warranty is another thing for the rest of the tires WHEN they get down to 2/32, but at that point, the cupped front tires, lack of proof of proper and required interval rotations (if you don't have any) and the general wear of the tires will mostly if not wholly negate that warranty too. Between front tire wear, hard use and heavy weights, tires don't last as long.
Tread separation "should" not happen however, no idea and its a great possibility that the tire was damaged somewhere along the way over the last 23k miles of rough use and heavy loads. It happens. I've snapped brand new $150 hockey sticks the second time on the ice, damaged new tires on the first road trip, etc.
In the short term, if you get a warranty that's worthwhile, that's good and you're back on the road with 1 new front tire.
On to new tires and what you can do for your truck.
First, most duallies, especially diesels are hard on front tires. You take the heaviest pickup truck front axle weight made and put it on the smallest tires possible. That means any minor inconsistencies in alignment, balance, every stress on the tire is proportionally greater than even a similar srw diesel truck with much wider tires with much greater load ratings. Those little tires are rated at barely over 3klbs. The empty curb weight of your truck is right about 5000lbs, so if any of the camper weight is on the front axle, half the passenger weight, back seat stuff, front accessories, etc, you can easily be running near or at the max load rating of those tires. Combine that with your driving style and area (mountains and lots of them), bad roads, lots of sharp turns, and you can see how it will affect the front tires especially.
Combine that with Ram's sometimes not great factory alignment and caster and that truck is hard on front tires in your config/driving style and tire size.
Best thing for tire wear you could do is find a dedicated closed shoulder steering tire. But in keeping with all terrain tires and front to rear matching, that's not super practical.
Keep the weak 17" offerings in mind, I'd be looking at Toyo M55 tires as a first choice for durability and toughness.
I would also consider very strongly, upping the size to the max that will fit on the rear. However you'll never get better than a 121 load index in 17" wheels so only a couple hundred lb gain in capacity s possible with 17s, from where youre at now.
Less siping will decrease tire wear under heavy loads.
Max pressure, if you weren't already running 80 psi up front will decrease tire wear, remember, you're maxed out with 235s on that truck.
I'd put the biggest widest tire I could on. 255 80 17s or 265 70 17s, whatever fits on the duals right.
Next step up is find some 18" aftermarket wheels that you can run wider tires on and get a real bump in load capacity, or 19.5s, which are ideal when running heavy all the time.
Hope this helps
Generally I've had good luck with Coopers. You can try for warranty, but it mostly won't be worth much. You have a warrantable failure it appears, but it's a $200 tire that looks like it might be reimbursed about $60.
Treadwear warranty is another thing for the rest of the tires WHEN they get down to 2/32, but at that point, the cupped front tires, lack of proof of proper and required interval rotations (if you don't have any) and the general wear of the tires will mostly if not wholly negate that warranty too. Between front tire wear, hard use and heavy weights, tires don't last as long.
Tread separation "should" not happen however, no idea and its a great possibility that the tire was damaged somewhere along the way over the last 23k miles of rough use and heavy loads. It happens. I've snapped brand new $150 hockey sticks the second time on the ice, damaged new tires on the first road trip, etc.
In the short term, if you get a warranty that's worthwhile, that's good and you're back on the road with 1 new front tire.
On to new tires and what you can do for your truck.
First, most duallies, especially diesels are hard on front tires. You take the heaviest pickup truck front axle weight made and put it on the smallest tires possible. That means any minor inconsistencies in alignment, balance, every stress on the tire is proportionally greater than even a similar srw diesel truck with much wider tires with much greater load ratings. Those little tires are rated at barely over 3klbs. The empty curb weight of your truck is right about 5000lbs, so if any of the camper weight is on the front axle, half the passenger weight, back seat stuff, front accessories, etc, you can easily be running near or at the max load rating of those tires. Combine that with your driving style and area (mountains and lots of them), bad roads, lots of sharp turns, and you can see how it will affect the front tires especially.
Combine that with Ram's sometimes not great factory alignment and caster and that truck is hard on front tires in your config/driving style and tire size.
Best thing for tire wear you could do is find a dedicated closed shoulder steering tire. But in keeping with all terrain tires and front to rear matching, that's not super practical.
Keep the weak 17" offerings in mind, I'd be looking at Toyo M55 tires as a first choice for durability and toughness.
I would also consider very strongly, upping the size to the max that will fit on the rear. However you'll never get better than a 121 load index in 17" wheels so only a couple hundred lb gain in capacity s possible with 17s, from where youre at now.
Less siping will decrease tire wear under heavy loads.
Max pressure, if you weren't already running 80 psi up front will decrease tire wear, remember, you're maxed out with 235s on that truck.
I'd put the biggest widest tire I could on. 255 80 17s or 265 70 17s, whatever fits on the duals right.
Next step up is find some 18" aftermarket wheels that you can run wider tires on and get a real bump in load capacity, or 19.5s, which are ideal when running heavy all the time.
Hope this helps
