Show off your Cooper ST Maxx

Yes I had these on my '07, had quite a bit of chunking but I i lived on a poorly maintained private dirt rd. It just sucks to hear stories like @300AACTaco where nothing could be done to balance the tires. Sometimes QC goes down the drain it has been a few years since i ran coopers, maybe they moved the manufaturing facility, who knows.

 

For you guys looking for the best deal, here you go...
http://tirecrawler.com/shop/cart/product_id/9443/action/remove/product_id/9443/

 

Thanks is 740 delivered a good price? Haven't started pricing these... searching that site for 255/80/17's reminded me that toyo released open country a/t in this size....options

 

I've been looking for 255/85r16's for a while and spent many, many hours on the internet and found this site to be the best price by far. I haven't taken it to discount tire yet, but they normally do a price match.

 

So I've got quite the story about my tires you guys, hang on for the ride it's worth the read if you own these tires or are looking at buying them.

So I bought my first set of Cooper ST Maxx in July of 2015 from Amazon.com in a LT285/75/16 with brand new Method NV wheels, and they were fantastic tires. I was immediately impressed by them as I was coming from a Nitto Trail Grappler M/T. The Coopers were more of a crossover between a Mud Terrain and an All-Terrain. Plus they were much more quiet and got better MPG. So I had them for about a year until July of 2016 when I made the trip and drove the Dalton Highway in Alaska (The state that I live in). This road is no joke, it's got potholes littered throughout, some of which are so big that arctic squirrels have burrowed out homes in them. You're going about 45mph-65mph the whole time over pretty rough mostly dirt road. It's nicknamed the haul road because it is mainly used year round by truckers to deliver supplies to Deadhorse, AK, it's a part of the North Slope Borough and it's all oil operation up there. The road isn't maintained at all besides plowing in the winter. Anyways, the tires held up great on the road, not a single puncture to my surprise (I had a full size spare just in case). However after the 1500 mile trip, I washed all of the 100 pounds of mud that was caked onto my truck off, and took my hands behind the barrels of the wheels and scooped the caked on dried mud out. Along with the mud though came the wheel weights, they must have just been held on by the mud. As soon as I scooped the mud out and drove, the truck rode like shit. Anyways, I had the tires balanced multiple times after this and it was found that two of the tires had been knocked out of round, they had significant high spots which couldn't be fixed with balancing of course. So despite road force balancing I could always feel the high spots wobbling across the highway. I toughed it out for a few months because it wasn't horrible in winter since the roads were a bit softer with the snow and I couldn't feel the wobble as much.

Now about a month ago, once all of the snow was gone for sure. I decided it was time to buy new tires. I put about 28k miles on my first set of ST Maxx and they wore great. Since I loved the ST Maxx up until I knocked them out of round, I decided to buy them again. But I also had some new wheels yet again because I loved the look of the SCS Ray10 model, wanted to change the look up on my truck, and wanted to eliminate all of the variables in case a wheel was bent. Here's where I made my first mistake, by buying them from American Tire and Auto in Anchorage. Shitty tire shop with rude assholes of employees that suck at balancing tires. I should have steered clear after reading their google reviews, but was left with a good impression after the one time I went there and they gave me a free lug nut lol, not a good basis on which to judge a business. Trust the google reviews. Anyways, I asked them if they could road force the ST Maxx and they said they would do it "if it needed it". Which, tires like this should be road force balanced every time off the bat in my opinion, it's just a superior way of doing things. So long story short they didn't road force them, why, I don't know. But there was less than 3oz of weight on each wheel when I picked them up which concerned me. And of course, once I put them on, they road like shit. Even worse than my out of round set. So after this, I figured that American Tire and Auto was just incompetent and took my tires to another shop to see if they could get it, they got it better, but still rode with a noticeable wobble and shimmy. Then I decided to have them road force balanced the first time by a different shop, and they rode really nice afterwards but they must have put the weights on wrong or not cleaned the surface well enough because they shot the weights off. After this I got fed up and took them back to American Tire and Auto. At this point they agreed to balance them again but didn't charge me, however they didn't road force them even though they had the capability of doing it. Rode like shit still. So I came back again, and then they road forced them, rode better, but not like they should. Brought them back again and they rode the same as the last time. So at this point I was thinking that something was actually wrong with the tires or the wheels. So I took them to a shop in Anchorage that normally specializes in sports cars but does the occasional large truck. I know a lot of the guys that work there really well, but never knew they had a road force machine until I talked to them about my woes recently. Because I'm a really frequent customer there for window tint, clear bra, and auto detailing, they road forced them for free for me because they felt bad for me lol. They even let me watch them do it so I could see what the machine was saying about the tires. They dropped the air pressure a bit, down to 30psi, and rebalanced all of the tires, added weights in different spots and such. And low and behold, as soon as I hit the road, pure butter. Smooth as could be. Perfect. I'm gonna pick up a few pizzas from Mooses Tooth Pizzeria in Anchorage (best pizzeria ever) and bring them by for their extreme generosity.

Moral of the story: These tires can be really difficult to balance, they do have their limits on capability as you saw with my Dalton Highway trip. GET THEM ROAD FORCED THE FIRST TIME, demand they be road forced. It's worth it. Also find a good shop, get in with the guys that work there and make friends with them and they'll take care of you. Also trust google reviews for the most part.

Overall these are great tires, but this whole ordeal was a huge pain in my ass. A lot of mornings spent having my girlfriend follow me to go drop off my truck. She got tired of it pretty quick but still did it thankfully. I bought these tires in late April and just today they were balanced how they should have been the first time. I'm still scared though to even ever rotate the tires though, don't think I will. Because I bet as soon as I do they'll ride like shit in the spot that they're in. Honestly I'm not 100% sure if I'll buy them again after this set is worn, even though when they ride like they should they do ride great. We'll see.

 

I've had mine for right around 20,000 miles and no issues. There can be a lot off factors that contribute to balancing issues, and it's not just limited to these tires.

 

Rotating properly balanced tires shouldn't mess anything up. If it does there was an underlying issue that was being masked somehow in their original orientation. Not rotating your tires is asking for poor tire life and for them to develop issues as well. Just my 2¢

 

Agreed, that there are many factors involved and most people point fingers directly at the tires. From my experience its usually the shop. It's very rare that the tire jockey getting paid minimum wage know how to properly mount and balance an oversized tires. Most common mistake I see is that they pump the tire up to full PSI. PSI should be based on wight of the vehicle. Previously I always had them balanced for 2 different PSI, one for normal driving and one for payload/trailer pulling, then have them set the weights to match both if possible or better spec to normal driving. Now I use DynaBeads, no need to have them balanced. I don't let tire shops touch my truck anymore after too many bad experiences. I just order my tires to be delivered, mount them myself, toss in the the DynaBeads and pump it up with air. I also roatate every 2k miles and check tire pressure weekly.

 

Agreed, tire rotations are a must.

This is a cool concept and has my respect seeing as how tractor trailers and RV's do just fine with these. Will consider this when purchasing my next set of ST Maxx's.

 

Another Dyna Bead evangelist here as well. I build my own wheel sets, mount, and drive. No lead weights to fiddle with.

 

Hmmmm... Dynabeads Ehh. I haven't had that many balancing issues, they do vibe a lil, but Ehh.. might try the beads tho! Sounds easy and awesome

 

I have 40s (GY MTR) on Method 105s with no weight and they feel fine. No clue why... but I like it!

Surprised at the results with these methods.

 

40zzz I liked my methods a lot, they needed very little weight. So many factors in balancing...From the guy doing it, the rim and the tire combo! I know with my situation they had a hell of time, we must have rotated them 50 times on the rim and they still have a shit load of weight. Eventually going to 39.5 and true beadlocks, I'll address if I stay cooper then..Well if they hold up to some abuse that is

 

Coopers today

 

What's with the ding in the new rim?.... Just kidding

 

Where!?! I don't see it

 

I know how ya feel. I try to keep new things as new as possible for as long as possible. Just sucks that it wasn't even your doing. Oh well time to blend with some rock rash.

 

Hell yah!!

 

Hope this uploads right, just got my 265/75/16s in, they look awesome next to the stock 265/70! Should be on next week just waiting on wheels and lugs =)