Features New Coker Bias look radials

What is it with you guys ragging on Coker? Like all they make is one tire. Don't you know that Coker carries all different brands? And types of tires? They sell 2 or 3 different brands of wide white radials. They own almost all the old tire molds to make authentic bias ply tires for everything from Model T's to modern foreign cars. If you're buying original type Firestone bias, or Goodyear, Coker made them.
I give Coker a lot of credit for saving and making new tires from the old molds, they could have just as well been destroyed, back when the hobby was not so popular. And I certainly give the credit for being first with doing the wide white radials. I drive customs, and back before they were available, all my custom buddies wanted radials so badly, some even used crappy porta walls so they would get a good ride and handling.
As for problems? Could be the old molds, could be poor manufacturing quality ( I believe some tires are made offshore) or just bad batches of tires. Could even be that the old molds were never perfect, as those old cars weren't meant to go faster than 55 MPH.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather be able to buy and run the old tires, or WWW radials, even if you have to go through a bit of balancing problems, or light shaving to get them right. Even going through the trouble of returning them, if necessary, Coker has good customer service, in general. Better than not having them at all.

 

I have bought 2 sets(8 tires) of Coker tires, one set of bias ply and one set of american classics radial(bias ply look) and all 8 have been round and balanced fine. I also have bought new Vintique wheels to go with the tires. Is it possible that some of the problems of balancing is when old wheels are used? Just a thought! And to add to that if anyone wants to come by and drive my car you are welcome to,I can put on the bias ply then the radials and you be the judge. I'm retired so I always home!! Pete

 

Very good points (chopolds & prpmmp). I hope there's thousands of GREAT ones & just a small % of problems. I know most people go to Websites to rant about their negatives, very few will come forward to rave about something great.
Still hoping when we spend $ money, a majority of us get "round" ones.

 

Love my Coker Classics. I had limited options with my white wall width but all seems ok

 

Totally agree, but I thought only Kelsey Tire did Goodyears??

 

Goodyear is on its own, I had a set of Super Cushions on my ford and they rode amazing. Firestones are the best looking tire but I can't get past spending $800 and getting potato shaped tires. You're paying a premium price for a low production specialty product, the damn things should be shaved at the factory.

 

That's hilarious! I'll be using that one.

 

I think it is if you personally had Trouble with a certain product!! This is how bad rumors start, but if you had first hand knowledge then fire away!! I do not work for Coker nor do I know anybody that is affiliated with them! My first hand experience with there products is A plus and I can pass that information on. Pete

 

So I'm not allowed to think something is funny?

 

Not at all! I did not put both quotes in so it was misleading! Sorry!! Ithought it was funny to but sometimes it puts a bad rap on some products! Hey your up pretty late? Pete

 

Guys either forget fast, or weren't there. Shaving new bias plys was a common practice in the days before radials, its not something that came about just for Cokers...

 

George what you say is true, but I was always able to get the dealer to swap for another tire if they were out of round so far that you couldn't tolerate the bouncing. Nylon corded tires flatspotting till warmed up were another problem back then.
But even at that, with the price guys are paying for these tires, and the availability of high tech equipment today, out of round tires shouldn't happen.

 

A car that I personally had a hand rebuilding and troubleshooting was " Slick Willy " s roadster here. After a ton of measuring it was resolved that all 4 tires were out of round, 2 more than twice the acceptable amount quoted by Coker. Problem was resolved and Slick Willy wrote a thread about it that he very soon after closed because it became a drama fest... Fact

 

If all their other tires are perfect, why don't they make their Firestone bias ply and their look like bias ply radial tires perfect?

 

I just bought the 8.20R15 from classic American Tire in June this year.

They look very good under my 1960 Cadillac. I already had radial ww but these got the old fashion look. They drive like a radial and I really tested them 110 on the highway for a long time. They wane follow some track Just a little bit. My old radials never followed a track.

The real problem have is that the tire’s are of balance. I balanced them I a couple of times and just fill in a complain about the tire.


One of the Tires in not round. If you look over the treat sideways you’l see it dip.

On the other side of the tire its round

 

I received my 8.20's from Coker and put them on with the 5.60s I received earlier. I now have a vibration at a couple of speeds that was not there before (45-50 & 65-70). I initially was pretty happy with the 5.60's but now I am not sure if the vibration was from the addition of the 8.20s or if it was there before and is now just amplified. I sent an email to Coker and here is how it has played out so far. If they recommend a particular balance machine, I wish they had said so in the first place.

My first email:
I recently purchased a set of the new radial tires that look like bias ply tires and I am not happy at all. These are the blackwall 8.20r-15s and 5.60r-15s I've been waiting for these since I saw them at SEMA nearly 3 years ago. I switched from an old set of Firestone pie crusts that ran smooth and true (as can be expected from bias ply tires). These new tires have only been mounted and balanced, not shaved, not road force balanced, nothing like that at all. However, while running on these tires, they offer very noticeable wobble and vibration at 45-50 and then again at 65-70. This is not acceptable for a set of tires that were well over $1000. Please advise if these tires are returnable or if you are aware of wobble issues and can offer replacements that will be guaranteed not to wobble (as it will cost another $100 or more to switch them out). Note that I am aware of others with similar balance / out of round issues on the HAMB. Thanks in advance for your solution.

Their reply:
Jeff,
Thanks for contacting us. We definitely have not experienced a wide spread issue with balancing those tires, so our recommendation would in fact be to have them tested on a Hunter Road Force machine. Do you know a location of one in your area? If not, let me know the city/state/zip code where you are located and perhaps I can direct you to one.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Michael Howard
Web Sales Manager

He then sent me a link to Hunter's website where I found a suitable machine close to me. I plan to have them balanced again on Saturday and will report back. Geez.

Reply, Reply All or Forward | More

 

I will be very interested in the outcome of trying the Hunter Road Force machine. Have to be dubious of the statement denying knowledge of widespread problems of this sort. Way too many post here on HAMB for this to be considered an isolated problem.
Agree that such problems shouldn't exist with the price you paid.

 

How come no one has come out with radial look bias plys.

 

Rolling: the physics of wheels

http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/rolling.htm

 

Last I heard was to avoid the Coker American Classic line as they come apart but I found out that Coker does not make theses tires but they are made by someone else and coker sells them. I still have the email pertaining to the tire I cant remember the name of the company but they are the makers of the American Classic Bias look Radials. I keep flipping between Firestone ww biasply tires to ww American Classic tires. Mine will be driven and after my move is done everything is highway driving (80+ MPH) so I have to be sure what I go with will be safe not just for me but for the car as well.

 

Coker does not make ANY tires. They're a tire retailer and everything they sell is made by contract tire manufacturers.

The bias look radial is made by McCreary who now does business as Specialty Tires of America. This is based on the manufacturer code for those tires as posted in this thread or another of the bias look radial threads. Website at http://www.stausaonline.com/

McCreary is a long time manufacturer of bias tires. Some sources say they've been making some radials for a few years now, but there's nothing on their website to indicate any significant part of their production is radials. I'd assume the radial production is all private branded tires like the ones they make for Coker. One press release says they make about 800,000 tires a year and 20% of them are radials. That would be about 160,000/yr or less than the number of radials Michelin would make before lunch on any Monday morning.

Goodyear, Firestone, BFG, and Uniroyal all started making radials for the US market around 1970. Each of them was producing millions of radials every year, and it still took all of them about 10 years before they could consistently make a tire that could be called decent. In the late 70's, Firestone's steel radial 500 was known by everyone in the industry to be a defective tire, but Firestone kept plowing forward with it, and it ultimately cost them about $700 million (about $3 billion in today's dollars) to settle all the claims. They never recovered financially from that, and it is the reason Bridgestone owns Firestone today.

The point is, there's a big learning curve for making radial tires, and McCreary would still be down fairly low on the start of that curve. To me, or anyone else who's worked for a major tire manufacturer, its not surprising at all that these tires seem to be kinda hit or miss in the uniformity department.

FWIW, the Hunter Road Force machine's purpose is to allow fine tuning of good tires. It wasn't built to save tires that should've been scrapped. If a tire is mounted on a known good wheel and balanced on a dynamic balancer, and it won't give a decent ride without any serious shakes, wobbles, or bouncing, then it should be replaced by the seller. Trying to shave it on a tire truing machine, or trying to pile enough weights on it to overcome major uniformity issues by running on a Road Force machine isn't something any customer should be expected to accept as reasonable.

 

Hell I have trouble with the guys at Discount and Sears to only use one weight when balancing my tires they always stack two side by side. What you are too lazy to remove the first weight and move it a little to the left or right to see if that will correct the balance. Sure takes a little more time but it is the right way of doing things.

As far as the radials goes I don't think mcCreary is the one who makes the American Classic Bias look radials. I might be wrong on that but the name doesn't sound familiar to me but I will check my email to see what was said and who I emailed about that tire.

~Update~
I take that back, I emailed Wide White Tires and they told me Staus makes the American Classic Bias look tires and that they have been in business for 100 years making tires.

 

This thread is starting to bother me!! My tires(560-14,820-15)are dead balls perfect!! Others aren't!! I was lucky?? If I buy another set will they be bad? I know nothing about making tires,How can some be good and others not,And isn't there a person for Coker on this Forum? Why hasn't He chimed in and give us the real facts!! Pete

 

Probably because as the guy who I emailed he told me the reason I heard tire failures from Coker is because Coker moves quite a bit of tires so there are to be problems expected due to the volume. Probably the same thing with the out of round is because of sheer volume they sell you hear their name come up more than other places that sell low volume of tires.

 

Here is my email to Coker this morning...

I was able to go to the service facility today that showed up on the Hunter search. I actually called them during the week to inquire about their balancing machine. They have the latest and greatest touch screen machine (as well as the latest mounting / dismounting machine) that is only a few months old and of course freshly calibrated. Their building doesn't even show up on google street view yet. The only option they do not have is the print out option, although the manager said he was definitely going to look into getting print capabilities after our discussion while I was there.

I explained to them that I was on a fact finding / problem solving mission and they were very accommodating and helpful. I was able to be in the shop with them looking over their shoulder during the whole procedure and they allowed me to use my calibrated torque wrench to do the final torque after they installed them with a very light torque stick. I believe they were pretty happy to work on a "cool car" this Saturday morning. There were a number of selfies taken with the car by the techs. I was unable to get any printed information but I did take a few snapshots of the screens and can basically remember the following.

One of the front tires had 40 pounds of road force imbalance, the other had 20 pounds. The rears were also out. One of them was "red" at over 20 pounds and the other was yellow at 18 I believe. All of them "Failed". They made their marks as indicated by the lasers on the wheels and tires, broke the beads, rotated each tire anywhere from 90 to 180 degrees to match up the marks, aired them back up to 32 PSI, ran a road force check again, and balanced them (non static). I wound up with a few small weights on the outside of the tires, as well as more on the inside, but it's a small price to pay for a better ride. All of the road force measurements were Green after the change. Part of the road force test was to measure the runout of the wheels and all of them were ok (they are Vintique Gennies that I bought from Coker in 2009). Before we started, I asked them to verify the pressure in all the tires and "check" the balance on each one. Two of them asked for 1/2 ounce, one asked for nothing and one asked for 1.5 ounces.

When I left, I took the car out on the the open highway and went slowly through every speed up to 90 with a short blast over 100. I have to say that the ride is still not perfect, but this car has never been as smooth as a Lexus. I don't expect that. I basically expected these radials to be at least as smooth and stable as it was before with the bias plies and not dog nose the ruts like the bias plies did before. There is still a small vibration between 55 and 60 but the very noticeable vibrations that were there before are gone for now (recall it had a very big vibration at 45-50 and 65-70). I can say that I am basically satisfied for now. At least I have my sweet spot in the car back as it was so smooth and quite from 72-77 before. It remains smooth up well over 80 also.

It is still disappointing that I had to go get them re-balanced on this awesome machine to get rid of these vibrations. The first tire shop I used for these Cokers also recently mounted and balanced some diamond back radials on another car I own and they are still much smoother than the Cokers (although I am curious to have them balanced at this new shop to see if the ride can be further improved). Thanks for the suggestion and consider this case closed, but bear in mind that I'm not the only one with complaints on these tires.

 

Glad to hear that the Hunter Road Force machine helped. I've been hearing/reading good things about them elsewhere online.

 

No further info on these tires from anyone? I've driven the car twice since the road force balancing and still good. Just curious.

 

Echoing Metlmuncher's post above. Well stated and accurate.

After 35 years in the tire business, I agree!

 

my bias ply stones keep me alert while driving, in my opinion they are the best improvement in the trucks looks.

 

My experience with Coker customer service about this has been top notch. I'm waiting for another pair, and I'm good with that, still running my old fronts for now. The only bummer is nice weather is going to get scarce around here rather soon.....