Cooper Tires: Tested and Proven in 4WD Paradise

The Kimberley region is a great example of the extreme variations of terrain across Australia. It is made up of diverse landscapes ranging from, lush tropically vegetated river gorges, aqua-blue seas, lush tropical water holes, vast savannah woodlands, rainforests and open plains.

Did you know that Cooper’s New S/TMAXX was tested in Australia’s Outback? Cooper Tires is committed to making 4WD tyres that last in these tough Australian conditions and for this reason, have used Australia’s harsh terrain as a testing ground for developing improvements to its current range and prototypes of its new 4WD tyres.

Cooper’s Research and Development Department analysed tyres sent from Australia and Marty Degyansky, Cooper’s International Technical Manager, came over to experience Australia’s harsh outback terrain first-hand. After Marty returned to America, Cooper designed the S/T-C anti-cut and anti-chip compound tyre. Cooper kept the proven outback tread design of the Sure Trac (S/T) but made selective changes to the compound to increase cut, chip and lug tear resistance by up to 90% and added additional under-tread reinforcing to resist stone and rock penetrations.

Cooper Tires’ Light Truck Product Manager, John Pecoraro joined Australia’s Cooper 4WD tyre specialists on a trip from Adelaide via the Flinders Ranges and Oodnadatta Track to Uluru to evaluate our harsh outback conditions. One year later, four identical Toyota Landcruisers were fitted with Cooper’s S/T-C and two prototype S/T replacement tyres and driven over the same routes. The aim is to evaluate the performance of each compound and tread pattern on the same terrain using the same tyre pressures and the same vehicles.

Cooper Tires’ engineers returned one more time, with near-final designs and three different compounds to test once again over the same country. This time even more vigorous testing was completed in some of the harshest conditions in the outback. Never before has such rigorous prototype testing of any All-Terrain tyre been completed in Australia. Additionally, Cooper completed more than 2 million kilometres of test track, road and laboratory testing to ensure the S/TMAXX is Cooper’s best-ever heavy-duty all-terrain tyre.’