Cooper CS5 Grand Touring 225/60/16 on 95 vert

[oldmangrimes]

I wanted to buy an American-made tire, and I was tired of the short life of the cheap or used tires that I've been running on my 95 vert for the last few years.   I drive about 15k a year, and switch to studless snow tires in the winter months.  My vert has 227k miles on it, but I plan on keeping it forever so I optimistically went with a 80k mile rated tire.   The tires are 225/60/16 and mounted on GP 5-spokes.

 

I don't have much extra money (note that I daily a 23-year-old car), so I went the cheap way and ordered them online from Walmart.com.  Total price installed was about $400 w/o road hazard.  Good price, but this is my first (and last!) experience with Walmart tire installation services.   3 hour wait, giant wheel weights, greasy handprints on the wheels, etc.       

 

With the way I drive around the curvy 2-lane roads on my commute, I don't expect to get 80k miles out of them, but I'd be happy with 50k.   I went with the CS5 Grand Touring instead of the performance-oriented CS5 Ultra Touring, because the Grand Touring was cheaper.   

 

I've only had them on for 100 miles so far on dry pavement, so I can't really evaluate them yet.   They look nice?  I've got a bad wheel bearing on my front drivers side, so between that and the constant wind noise from the convertible top it's hard to tell if the tires are quiet or not.   Of course they handle better than the mismatched set of worn-out tires I had on there before.  I normally get some oversteer due to my Z34 rear sway and poly front sway bushings, I hope these new tires keep the back end more stable.   I need a rear alignment, too (but honestly I need about 3,621 things more urgently than a wheel alignment, so it probably won't happen anytime soon.   Did I mention that I daily a 23-year-old car?).   

 

I'm running 35psi on them now, but I plan on bumping that up to 40psi for better mpg, longer life, and a little sharper handling.  

 

I'll update this post with more feedback after a few thousand miles, and after I get the wheel bearing replaced.

[Imp558]

I used to run Coopers on the Regal, they wore really fast in a bad way if the alignment wasn't right on. Those may not be the same ones but they were about $100/ea installed at Sears. I just replaced them one at a time with another Cooper since the price was right as needed.

I'll have to snap a pic of one and see if they were the same.

[bluecalais79]

Thanks for posting this, I'm interested in seeing how this pans out as I'm thinking about getting a fresh set of refurbished 5 spokers for my 1996 Cutlass and I'm checking out those Coopers for it. My current tires are the Uniroyal Tiger Paws which I'm happy with but the 5 spoke wheels I have them on are crud and the edges are badly chewed up from the weights put on and off by the prior owner. My dad isn't as picky as I am so I was planning on giving him mine for his 1994 Supreme and going new on mine with those Coopers. If I do this I will be sure to ask for stick on weights rather than the weights used in your photo.

[oldmangrimes]

Update: 

Yesterday morning on the drive to work I noticed the car seemed a little floaty, and sure enough at a red light the guy next to me yelled that one of my rear tires was really low on air.    Luckily I was right in front of a gas station and pulled it to check the tire.   I couldn't find a nail in it, so I filled it up at the air machine.   I waited a while, and couldn't hear any hissing, so I continued on to work, stopping every couple miles to check the air pressure.   I got to work ok, and of my coworkers suggested checking the valve stem seal.   It passed the soapy water test, but I was able to tighten it a few degrees so it might have been loose.   At the end of the work day, the tire was still at full pressure so I drove home.   Last night, I checked the other four tires.   I found another valve stem seal that seemed a little loose, and that tire was down to only 20psi!     I aired up all four tires to my preferred pressure of 38 front, 40 rear and drove a few miles to test them.   The pressure held for the short test drive.   But I had to drive a different car to work today (for other reasons) so I don't know if I fixed the problem by tightening the valve stem seals, or if it's something else.   I'll check again tonight.

 

Possible causes of tire leaks:

1.   Tiny puncture holes in two tires at the same time.   Unlikely.

2.   Loose valve stem seals from incompetent tire installers.   Probable.

3.   Bad tire seal to edge of 23-year-old rim because installers didn't smooth the surface properly.  Possible.   

4.   A batch of low-quality, leaky valve stems from Walmart.   Possible.   

5.   Tires were never aired up properly in the first place by aforementioned incompetent tire installers.   Possible, and scary to think about.

6.   Something else wrong with the new Cooper tires that causes a slow leak.   Unlikely.

 

Lessons learned:

1.  Don't use Walmart tire services in Wood Village, Oregon.   I don't know about other Walmarts, and now I'll never use them to find out.   

2.  ALWAYS, ALWAYS check your tire pressures after getting tires installed.   I'd been going to good (but expensive) tire shops for the last 10 years and never had problems so I got lazy.

 

I'll continue to check the tire pressure every day for a while, and report back.   If it holds, it was the valve stems.   If the pressure drops, I'll take them to a good tire shop and have them remounted to check the rim seal.  They can rebalance them and put smaller weights on them, too.  Also, I'm worried that the tire that got low on air might have had the sidewall damaged.   

 

I'm also going to look into aftermarket TPMS systems.   I had a winter tire damaged last month from a nail and my son drove with it flat and destroyed the sidewall.    

[Imp558]

If it's a rim leak it's a bit like roulette. If it's parked on the right spot the pressure on the tire can excite the leak. Could be days or weeks. I'd take it back in the trunk of another car next time. (Wouldn't want them to put their hands on the car while I'm complaining)

[Mitchellman]

I wouldn't take it to any Wal-Mart, or Discount Tire for that matter, to have tires mounted and balanced. I mount all my own, and after a year or two, you would not believe how bad aluminum wheels can corrode around the bead. I use a 3 or 4inch wire wheel on a 90degree digrinder and clean the beads up every time the tires come off. Also clean up around the valve stem and always put in new stems anytime the tire is dismounted. Many times the beads and valve stems leak where they meet the aluminum. Also, I always use bead sealer. Just an extra precaution.

[Imp558]

That reminds me I haven't had an opportunity to use my old bumper jack ... er ... I mean sophisticated shiny new bead breaker yet.

[oldmangrimes]

Update:   The tires are holding pressure fine after a few hundred more miles so I think the rim seal is fine.   I'll continue to check them regularly, but I think I can conclude that the idiots at Walmart either didn't air them up at all in the first place, or didn't tighten the valve stems properly, or both.   Dangerous and scary.   

 

For performance, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring seem pretty good.   I got the Grand Touring instead of the softer, more expensive Ultra Touring because I wanted the longer tread life, but the Grand Touring seems to grip pretty well in both wet and dry conditions.   I've noticed that they don't seem to squeal very loudly at their handling limits.   They seem to have a nice smooth transition when the rears start to lose grip on hard corners, since I have a Z34 rear bar and poly front bushings I can get a little oversteer.  The old Starfire tires I had from Tire Factory would get a little squirrelly under side-loads and made it hard to feel their limits.   The Coopers give me more confidence on hard corners.   

 

I'm running 38 psi front, 40 psi rear, so the ride is a little harsh but I like the sharper low-speed handling and better mpg.    I will lower the pressure a little during the summer when my wife drives it, she likes a smoother ride and only drives it when the top is down.

[oldmangrimes]

Update:   Last weekend I finally got around to replacing both front wheel bearings, so I can finally evaluate the tire noise from the Coopers.  The tires are quiet.   Quieter than the constant wind noise in my convertible, that's all I can really evaluate.   I think my wheel bearings had been getting bad for awhile and I thought it was just tire noise from my old worn out tires last summer and my studless snow tires last winter.