New England B.S. Thread

I forget that Toyota keeps SUV platforms around longer, I was basing it on the 3G Tacoma not having that long of a life. Completely forgot how long the T4R was unchanged.

For how long I plan to keep vehicles buying new makes the most sense for me. I was commenting on how I like the current styling so I’m hoping Toyota doesn’t do a controversial restyle right before I’m ready to buy.

I figure by 2030 my Taco will be nearly 15 years old so I’ll probably due for something new. I don’t really love the aesthetics of the 4G Tacoma and I think I’ll want a change anyways.

I still need to find an STI first. I”m honestly somewhat surprised it’s been as challenging as it has been to find what I want.

 

So, the tires on the truck are starting to show miles. I got down and looked at them yesterday and while the tread is still serviceable (and I am pleased to see that all four are very evenly worn), I figure I might as well stack the replacements so I'm not at the mercy of some ass-end supply chain problem when I do need them. And since I was already crawling around on the ground looking at the tread anyway, I decided to go ahead and check the air. And that's when I saw a couple of small (</= 1") cracks in the sidewall on two of them.

Whelp. Good thing I already decided to order new. Good thing these are my favorite tire ever and there's no question I just want to replace them 1:1, EZPZ call the tire man and tell him to do me for another one of the last thing in my file.

Except. Cooper just discontinued them (Discoverer AT/LT and even the AT3) while I wasn't looking. Sigh. And the Strongholds they're replacing them with aren't in wide availability yet - the tire man says they're still mostly going to OEMs for new vehicles and larger tire retailers.

Thankfully the tire man dug some up for me after a couple tries, so at least the inevitable horror of finding a new favorite tire is delayed for now.

 

That sidewall cracking issue is exactly why i stopped buying Cooper tires. That and i couldn'tget them to wear evenly. Tires shouldn't have sidewall cracks like that.

 

Less than four years old, 50% tread, 5,000 mile rotations and meticulous checking of tire pressure.

I won't touch Cooper with a 10-foot pole.

 

Well, I wore these about out before I got any cracking - I'll be driving less now than on that set, and if they crack before they wear out I might have to investigate another brand. The two sets before this didn't have the problem at all, so I'm glad ya'll mentioned it. I'll keep an eye out.

 

If the replacements are discontinued, check out the date codes on the tires to make sure you're not getting something that's been on the shelf for 2-3 years. I ran into that once with a set of tires that was already 2+ years old before I even mounted them. If you're not driving a ton of miles, you'll age out before you wear out, and since Cooper is prone to cracking, you'll kick yourself.

I typically age out of tires before I wear them out, so I try to be careful about tire date codes. My KO2s are dated coded 2018, so next season will be my last, even though I probably still have 7-8/32 of tread on them.

 

This will probably be my fate. Late 2019 I needed tires and bought a set rated for 70K. At the time I drove 15K a year because working in the office.

Bought those tires at about 107K. March 2020 arrived and I'm in the office 1-3 times a year tops, less if I can get away with it.

My truck just hit 143K..almost 5 yrs later.

 

Yeah, I'm hip to date codes, I've found that when you special order a tire that isn't a regionally popular special order (*cough*pizzacutters*cough*) the stuff in the central warehouses gets stale.

 

Wow. Mine were 1” from the rim, all the way around, all 4 tires. Tires were less than half worn. Cooper pro-rated the tires, but I couldn’t get the replacements to wear evenly at all and they got riding rough. Traction was great but that’s about it. I went to Michelins and will stay there, but I admittedly am running mostly pavement so they suit my needs well.

 

I could only get them to pro-rate one and I had to replace it with the same tire. The other three had suspect areas and I wasn’t about to only do one or a pair on the Jeep.

I went to the CrossClimate 2 and never looked back.

 

Anybody have some of the oem style plastic top side steps? Sort of want to try to disassemble them and have a plastic cover on my rock sliders so I can't just coat the rock sliders in woolwax and not have to worry about painting them every couple years

 

Thank you Jason. Great job, as always !

 

While in Taunton, Stopped in The Pearl Restaurant for a great lunch.

 

Too much greenery in that soup for me!

 

As my Portuguese friends would say, “mais fica”.



Plenty of Linguiça in there.

 

We have those on Mrs. SpruceMica's Odyssey minivan. Best non-high performance non-truck tire I've ever had.

 

Is it wrong for me to think there shouldn't be a gap between my skid plate and crossmember? It's mint everywhere else as far as I can tell.

 

Me and the GF wanting to spend 2 nights checking out coastal Maine the week of the 23rd - anyone know the good spots for truck camping? We're looking at fed parks/forests, which is totally good enough (she uhhhhhh strongly prefers having access to flush toilets) but IDK the area that well and figured there might be some smaller campgrounds somewhere that someone might recommend.

 

State parks ok?