Coker Tires - Is it just me??

Do the Firestone and BGF bias repo's have the same issues or just the Cokers?

 

A shame they can't get 'em right every time. I bet Corky's tires are perfect.

 

My Coker 16-650 bias mounted up front start to shake at 62 mph. Trying to find someone in New Zealand who can shave them.

 

I've had at least 10 sets of Coker Firestone bias tires. Anybody that knows me will agree that I drive the hell out of my cars/trucks. I have NEVER had a square or out of round set, ever...! I drive my roadster at 80+ on most drives with no problems out of the 450/475X16 fronts that some people complain about.

I also know up front that they are not Michelin radials.... They are 100 year old technology on 70 year old wheels. What do you expect?

The looks of the Firestone's over the Exselsior is a no brainer..... I'll keep my bias plies.

If you want to ride in a Prius, just drive a Prius.

 

Mine were the Firestone bias 450/475s - I was thinking 450/550. The 550 is the next size up. Kevin, Mine worked well for a long while. I thought - Damn what's all the hub bub about. Those people must be doing something wrong or their front ends are junk. Then one day I accelerated hard on the interstate and my front end goes all bezerk. Jump on the brakes and slow down till it settles out. From that day on it began occurring under hard acceleration. Right about the middle of winding 2nd gear between 70-80 you better hang the hell on! The grill shell looked like it was going to buck off the car.

Then I spent the next 9 months changing out every component on my front end looking for something wrong. Nothing. I toe'd in, I toe'd out, I air pressured up and down. I castered more, I uncastered, All the same. Changed tires and wah la. Problem gone. It's never done it since. I had maybe 3000 miles on those little 450 bias tires when the problem started. They had lots of tread left. My car handled well on bias. Maybe a little sketch in the grooves but that's fun. You should buy you a lottery ticket with all the good luck you've had

 

Just spitballing here but for those guys like Tudor who are few miles on their bias before they got the shakes here's something to consider. The heat and speed rating on bias plies is pretty crappy at best. Also the weight rating on a 450 to 500 16 tire is somewhere around a Harley dresser of a VW Beetle spec. If any of these specs are exceeded it might produce some internal breakdown or ply separation. I've seen it happen on everything from truck tires when the weight limits was exceeded to radial car tires when you exceed speed ratings. They actually began to melt down internally. The tires look good on the outside but are all messed up inside.

 

Just like any repo part sometimes it works and sometimes you have to make it work. It seems to me that these tires are no different. Shaving, proper balancing and experimenting with tire pressure seems to fix a lot of problems. From what I have experienced and from many of your posts it would appear that often the problems being experienced are with Firestones in the smaller 16" sizes that we run on the front of our cars. I would like feedback from anyone if they have experienced similar problem with the B F Goodrich in those sizes? I am glad that these tires are all available. No one makes me buy them but if anyone thinks that you can just purchase them, put them on and run them without any issues is a bit of a stretch for me. If it has worked for you congratulations! For the rest of us that want this look I am just trying to figure out what works the best with the least pain and expense. Thanks for all your input!

 

I have thought about Radials,but seems like the only ones you can get in the 16" big & littles are Excelsior and too much $$$$$$ for me. There are sizes for the rear readily available,but for front is a problem unless you go to 15" and I have good 16" rims and 42 hubcaps which I want to retain. Anyone know if there is a narrow 16" radial about the size of a 550x16 or 600x16?

 

I have had the same issues with my 16" firestones. At 55mph you can drive this car with your pinky, at 65mph you'll be screaming for your fuckin life.
I've made every adjustment, rebalanced, swapped rims, added dampher, etc.
They tires look great but its my last set.

 

It might not be just you ... But it isn't me. I've never had a problem with them.

 

These are BFG Cokers. No problems with them either.

 

What size are they?
Nice car!!!!

 

I thought I would tell Coker about all the complaints and this is their answer



Gary,
Thank you for contacting us and bringing the issue to our attention. We at Coker Tire strive to offer the best possible tire and are happy to work with any customer to come to a satisfactory conclusion when issues do arise. There will be a reply posted to the forum later . If any customer has an issue or concern they may contact us via email or phone at 1-800-242-0009 and we will be happy to help. Thank you again for contacting me Gary and have a safe and happy holiday.

Thank you,

Richard Stephens
Web Sales Specialist </pre>

 

5.60X15 and 8.20x15

 

I thought so--doggone,I don't want to get rid of my 16's,,but can't seem to find right size in a 16 for the front---guess I'll have to stay with Stones

 

Diamond Back is working on "pie crust" bias-looking radials in the 550 X 16 and 750 X 16 size ranges for 2013. One big advantage the tires should have is not needing a tube, like ALL present DBs, but unlike 16" Cokers, Excelsiors and others.

 

Thanks for that info----I submitted couple questions to them thru their web site,but never go a response----guess I'll have to call them sometime

 

that works perfect for me,i live in parker!thanks for the info

 

Is there a date code on the tires as standard fare? The one w/ issues are they a batch or a specific size? Narrow down the possibilities.

 

yblock292 had a thread on here a while back about the balancing BB's. Interesting read although I havn't tried them yet.

 

It does work, use #9 shot, about an ounce in each tire, small enough to feed through the valve stem, cured my "bounce" problem on my roadster.

 

Someone mention adding tire pressure and I agree. On my 26 with Cokers and they were Radial as well so less sensitive than Bias to pressure to a degree. 33-35 PSI and it rode fine, 32 and less and HOLD ON!!!!!!!!

I am a Engineer and even I thought the opposite would be true, more air PSI, and the tires might have a tendency to bounce, the opposite was true in my case.

Take you D/D for instance, most late model O/T cars you want to know the PSI look in the owners manual or on the sticker on the door jam right?My conclusion is that it's almost impossible for a tire manufacturer to recommend the correct PSI for 95% or more of our vehicles, just being what they are. Experiment with the tire pressure, doesn't cost a penny, and I bet it will remedy quite a few of cars suffering with this type of issue, TR

 

Making sure the rims are true, balancing the tires, and shaving the treads are necessary for proper ride.

 

I drove on bias tires for years (I'm old lol) and never had any shaved---never even heard of it,and a lot of them were recaps!---No problems---ever!!!

 

Sorry but this thread doesn't show there is a problem with the product.

Did you read the O/Ps first post, and how COKER sent the tires back to him at his expense? Know why, nothing was wrong with the tires!!

Did you read my other post?

You know I could have been a lame ass loser, and said what a piece of shit car I had, something wrong with the front end, something wrong with the piece of crap tires, Coker sucks, blah, blah, blah.

I didn't, I used my damn brain and started playing with tire pressure before anything else in the whole universe, and it cured my bounce/wobble 100%.

Too many people want to play the blame game, ask questions on the internet, and just about wait for a problem to fix itself like majic.

Pretty sad state of affairs society is in these days. What the hell did we do before the internet- we learned how and fixed the damn problem didn't we.

 

I think I brought it up to 35 from 30 in the front. . . but I can double check.

 

I run 30 all around in mine,and have no problem,except my tires,especially the rear ones are wearing in the middle and not on the sides of the tread---that (I think) is usually caused by too much pressure?????

 

exactly what I did 35 PSI and problem solved. I think my posts are invisible sometimes, TR

 

I had a set similar to your 3-4 years ago. At 62mph they started to dance. Tried all sorts of things; dynabeads, static, dynamic balancing, trueing, tire pressure etc.. NADA. Never did get the problem solved but I did learn to drive through the shaking. They settled down at about 80mph and were fine at speeds above that.

My advice: drive real fast.