Coker Tires - Is it just me??

Ryan,
I am sure your support for Coke is justified. However, if you read back though this tread between the general whining, unsubstantiated complaints, idolizing support, technical guesswork, and armchair mechanics, there are some real certifiable problems noted here. Ironically one of them came directly after your comment.

I've been in new products design and marketing for over forty years. I know how a companies reputation can be unjustifiably tainted. I also know that if any product in my company received this kind of scathing press in front of their consumer base red lights and sirens would go off and we would all be in full response mode. This is not drama. These people are not making this stuff up. This is damage. It needs to be addressed.

 

This is what I am going to do--buy the tires down there and have Coker mount and balance them.

Wow, an extra $4 to $7 per tire is not a huge expense for having Coker do the work. You have to have the tires mounted anyways. Don't see your point if it is going to cost $14 to have Coker do it when you would have to pay $7 to $10 or more locally. It costs about $10 to $15 to have a normal tire mounted and balanced around these parts anyways.

QUOTE GARY: Well they want $14.40 per tire to mount & balance plus 10% sales tax!!!So the HAMB discount would pay the tax,but $14.40 each to mount & balance AFTER paying a premium price for tires . Not for me!


I am not wealthy, but $56 (really only an extra $28 if you factor in the cost of having it done locally) is not a heck of a lot of money when you are talking old cars.

So the choice is to have a local tire service guy who has never touched a pre-war car mount them for $7 to $10 each ($28 - $40 for all) or have a company that deals with vintage auto tires daily do the work for $14 each--only an additional $28 on top of what you are already going to pay to have it done locally ($56 for all) --That sounds like a tremedous value.

Good luck.

 

I do greatly appreciate their customer support, make no mistake. I appreciate what they are doing as a company. I am certain that they are good people. I have no doubt that they would take care of any and all outstanding issues, as soon as they are identified. I am not an armchair mechanic with unsubstantiated allegations, I am a professional custom car builder at a reputable shop. As a pro builder, I NEED the outstanding issues to be identified, resolved, and ended, BEFORE these, or any other mass-produced product, lands on my door step, not after. After costs me, and my customers money. There can be no "maybe" with a safety item, like a tire. They are getting this right on a good percentage of their tires, so I know they CAN do it. They need to identify what it is that they are already doing right, and make that the only thing they do.

 

37 fordor,you are absolutely right,but its a 600 mile each way trip for me,so I also have to factor in the gas $$$ & motels

 

Okay, I see. I thought that you, like me, were already planning on going down there.
Sorry for the mix-up.

I am already going to Tennessee because my wife has kin folk down there and we have to pick up my deceased mother in law's furniture and bring it back to Illinois. So that part works out for me. I have to go to Knoxville/Chattanooga whether I buy vintage auto tires or not.


Good luck with the tires.
T

 

I do not think that you are being over dramatic. Coker should know more about this subject than anyone. This would be a perfect forum for them to educate us about bias plys. That would include the "bad" issues that one could run into with buying them. We are all big boys here and can make our own decisions to use old tech to stay correct with our builds. But please Coker, give us the low down.



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I think Coker has responded correctly. They said they would fix individual problems one on one. What more could you ask for? I think some of the negative post are by the same person with a different identity. They sure read the same and use the same phrasing.

I think the person that started this thread should probably order his tires in advance and do his 60 second inspection and contact Coker. I never plan ahead either and then I blame all of the problems on somebody else. Then the dog runs off and the wife's car will not start and the grand children are caught for under age consumption and The VFW wants a donation. I then get on the web and pick on some poor completely innocent entity to vent my frustrations. Does this sound familiar?

 

Good, solid feed back is needed. Not drama.

 

I also have a high speed wooble. I have tried balance, air pressure, and the balance beads. It all seems to help, but its sill there, I'll be looking into some of the other recomendations posted here as well. Thanks for all the info.

p.s. Over all i've been very happy with Coker and their tires.

 

What shocks do you have? I have the same issue, and talked to several people about the Bilsteins and it stopped the problem. I still haven't bought any for mine, yet.

I have 15" Firestones and will buy more for the next project......

 

As far as being "for show only" i can tell you I drive the heck out of my car on Cokers. Rain, shine, even snow once in awhile. I'm on my second set of Coker widewalls... 560-15's up front and 820-15's in the back... Drove them for almost 15,000 miles, and replaced them with an identical set. Both sets vibrate at about 65-70 mph... but if you don't drive right in that 3-5 mph "window" they ride pretty well. At first it scared the crap out of me and I thought for sure the wheels were gonna fall off... but they don't. I'm about 5000 miles into my second set and swear these get better as they wear out. Either that or you just get used to it, but I honestly think as they wear they make themselves rounder. I'd like to try the foam BB thing... that actually sounds like a cool idea that would likely work.

So yes, I agree and confirm that it's absolutely true these tires are not perfect, and probably not as good as the originals they are reproductions of... but they aren't unusable, are a zillion and a half times cooler looking than any diamondback radials, (or any other radials for that matter) On a non-fendered traditional styled hotrod radials are not even an option...so if you want the look you pretty much gotta suck it up and deal with it.

Bottom line is, if being cool was easy, everybody would be doing it.

 

Joey that is a great lookin Roadster!!!

 

I remember watching my 7.50/16s wobbling like hell on the balancing machine, they aren't on the car yet. The wheels were perfect too.

 

Gee and I thought most were saying the trouble was just with the smaller than 600x16's---guess I was wrong

 

As a potential customer their customer support don't really encourage me given the number of unhappy customers: it seems the customers are doing the quality check, ok they replace the tires if they're bad but we have tu suck up shiping and mounting. Being overseas makes the cost of one tire already at least 30% more. If I get bad tires I ship them back to get new ones? In the end it's gonna cost less to just buy another set, but having to buy more than 4 tires for one car doesn't seem right, on the other hand I could be lucky...

 

My concerns too - if I order new whitewalls for my T-bird and they have a 'wobble' I'm c*** out of luck re getting them exchnaged....

 

I REALLY feel for you guys that are not in the U.S.

 

I run the same tires on my 36 Panel truck, Drive the Hell out of it, No Problems! Chris

 

I've always said if you want your car to have the ride of a Cadillac then buy a Cadillac - so I agree with the ride issues - to a point. If the tires are jumping all over the place, or they are out-of-round, or they have cracks - that's NOT a bias ply issue - thats a manufacture process issue - period. I've not seen or read of one serious point in all of this - the safety issue of these tires. What will it take - the "death wobble" causing a serious accident or worst yet a death? Looking cool is one thing, but highway safety is another - and that's coming from a guy driving on 23 year old Firestones! This thread has been on here 2 weeks now, and we continue to hear the same thing repeated - now where do we go from here - what do we do now - and how do we find a solution to the problems?
I want to put new tires on my car, and feel like I'm buying a quality product at a fair price. I also want a product I can count on its safety,performance, and appearance for a reasonable amount of time - can Coker deliver this?

 

i know there is a lot of talk on the smaller 16" stones, but what about the 6.70x15 ww stones? my wife bought me some for xmass about a week before this thread came up and now im scared to even waist my time an money trying to have them mounted.

mine came from summit and im not sure on their return policy. i would love for these to work, but we are already into them for just under $800 and i dont want to mount them if they are shit.

how many of you guys have ran the beads inside?
i know on our rock crawlers they work, but thats on something that already rides and handles like crap.

i also know that im switching from radials to bias plys and im prepared for that, but i dont want to step that much farther in time to flinstone's tires

 

Are these problems just with the Firestones? What about the Coker Classic & Goodrich bias tires that Coker sells? Any problems with them? Like I said before,I have 550x16 and 700x16 Stones with about 15,000 miles on them,and NO problems,almost due for a new set & thinking about going to 600x16 and 750x16,but this thread has me ,as Elvis would say "ALL SHOOK UP" ! I don't want W/W's,& don't really see anything in those sizes except the Stones

 

For us, it has been just some of the Firestones. Everything else has been fine. We use mostly 5.60-15, 6.70-15, 5.00-16, 6.00-16, 7.50-16, and 8.90-16.

 

What kind are the tubeless?

 

30 some years ago, I remember the Firestone tires my Dad bought for both his '40 Lincoln and '37 Cord needed to be shaved when they were mounted.
He didn't seem to think anything of it. Being the age he was, I think he just assumed it would need to be done.
I had never heard of it or seen it done before then.

 

Lets get real, I run the 16" Coker Classic radials on my coupe and 32 gals roadster. They look great( black walls) I am as traditional as you can get, if you have seen either one of these cars, you would agree. However I was tired of the crappy ride and horrible steering problems that come with bias plus. I would have killed for a set like I have now, back in the day. And I go way back, over 50 years under my belt Hot Rodding

 

Your blue car is the reason I've decided that it would be okay to run Coker radials. IMHO it does not suffer one bit in the looks dept. with the radials.


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4.50x16's and 7.50x16's. with tubes, balanced and clocked, never shaved.
No problems at any speed.

 

damn fine 5w...