Cooper CS5 Grand Touring Separation

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Back in May of 2015 I purchased a set of Cooper's CS5 Grand Touring tires for my Crown Vic. Put about 65,000 miles on them before the tread got to the point that they needed replacement. They're rated for 80,000 miles. They were the best tires I ever had. Liked them way more than Michelins.

I went to Discount Tires every month for a pressure check (can't do it myself) and had them rotated and balanced every 6-7000 miles. Basically, I took really good care of them. When the guy at Discount Tires was measuring the tread last week to determine if they needed replacing, he noticed that the right rear tire was beginning to separate. They swapped it with my spare to ride on until the new tires arrived a few days later.

I've read about the recalls of Cooper tires with separation problems, but the CS5 Grand Touring is not one of the models ever recalled. What do you folks think? Is a separation beginning at 65,000 miles acceptable, or should it never happen under any circumstance?
 
I bet you have the T rated Cooper CS5's, not the H rated ones. Cooper makes an H rated in the same size for some applications. The H rated one wouldn't have experienced this most likely because that speed rating has a full cap ply while the T rated one doesn't. However, the H rated Cooper CS5 has a shorter tread wear rating. Simply put, S and T speed rated tires have a higher incidence of tread separation.
 
Since I believe the CS5 has a cap ply I would not think it should have tread separation issues, especially at less than 5 years old. Hopefully this is just an outlier situation since I've not heard may reports like yours for this tire.

Edit: I was typing this before the above post and as mentioned I was assuming it is the "H" rated tire. Was it the T or H rated ?
 
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I believe they were the T-rated.

The reason I asked is because a friend of mine who has handled accident law cases for many years told me that treadwear is normal, but separation is caused by a manufacturing defect and is therefore never acceptable. I wanted to know if the mechanically inclined people here agreed or disagreed.

Discount Tires replaced the separated tire for free since it was non-repairable and I had purchased the road hazard warranty. They also gave me an $80 pro-rated credit on the treadwear of the set because they didn't make it to 80,000 miles. I really like Discount Tires, but I'm wondering if I made a good decision to repurchase the same model tires.
 
Extremes of heat, speed (which is heat + stress), and tire damage can cause separation... you said "beginnings to separate", so we really have no idea if it ever would, truly separate. We'll never really know because you're doing the right thing before we find out.

If you got 65K out of a set of tires around Phoenix, yeah, do it again.
 
Thanks, guys. I appreciate your opinions. Overall I feel pretty safe on these tires. I'll just keep an eye on them like I should anyway.
 
I use cooper cs5 ultra touring tires and they are the smoothest and grippiest in the rain tires i have ever used.
 
Originally Posted by shiny
…..... The reason I asked is because a friend of mine who has handled accident law cases for many years told me that treadwear is normal, but separation is caused by a manufacturing defect and is therefore never acceptable. I wanted to know if the mechanically inclined people here agreed or disagreed. ……


I'm sorry, but my experience examining 1,000's of separated tires says that manufacturing defects are NOT the major cause of tread separations. Of all those tires I've examined, only a handful (meaning around 5) could I connect a defect to the failure - and by defect I mean something that is there that is not supposed to be there, but is, or something that is supposed to be there, but isn't.

By contrast, the majority of the failure couldn't be identified at all. I attributed these to "design" - what materials are supposed to be used and how they are arranged - because when the design was improved, the rate of failure reduced- and by HUGE!!! numbers.


Originally Posted by shiny
…..... Discount Tire replaced the separated tire for free since it was non-repairable and I had purchased the road hazard warranty. …….


If they did that, then they think it was road hazard related and not a defect. Ya' see, Cooper would 100% compensate them if it was a separation caused by a defect or design, but not for one caused by a road hazard.
 
Hello,

not really the same model, but i had 2 years ago some CS5 on a Toyota Yaris sedan (compact car), on a mix of city + highway driving.
At 4 years old (can't remember how many miles but around 35-40k miles) at half tread, the backs had cracks and the fronts had blocks starting to separate.
I have a tread somewhere.

I do not drive really aggressive, but beside UV, i also attribute it to salt and brine used in the Chicago area.

And you are right, very grippy in dry and rain, good at new stage in snow (Not on ice). confirmed with 3 different vehicles with 3 Cooper tires models (CS5, Zeon RS3-A, CS4-discontinued)

I saw the cracks also on Cooper Zeon on Mazda5 and on Nokian Entyre (1.0)
 
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