Projects Coker Vintage Tires Quality

1951 Ford Coupe.
The bias ply Coker Silvertowns are smooth they ride good for what they are. Tonight, I had it to 70-75 on the Hwy. I just zipped along. It's a fun ride.

 

They must be talking about those bias look radials. I have heard that the Coker Bias-Look radials can be problematic.

 

I've come to the conclusion that most Coker 16" bias ply tires need to be shaved. They've known about this issue for years and make all sorts of excuses as to what the problem is.

The shop that shaved my tires has a record of all the times he's called Coker to tell them of the problem. Before shaving, car would shake and the wheels would hop like a basketball at around 50 mph. After shaving, problem is gone. The pile of rubber didn't lie how out of round the fronts were.

I talked to them at Hershey again this year and got so aggravated I walked away. I was going to buy some tires to have as spares, but the salesman acted like he's never heard of the problem before. C'mon, dude. Please.

 

Coker yellowing , rough ride .......... went back to Diamond back ...........

 

The short answer is no...wait for "Diamondbacks".

 

Many, many happy and trouble free miles with Coker bias. I only drive old cars, my newest being my 59 F100 which has had a few sets of Coker tires on it. I drive freeway, back roads, long trips, short trips, haul loads, you name it. Nary a problem ever. I can't speak for the radials but their bias tires have served me well.

 

I put a set of Coker bias look radial, 6.50 15 and 8.20 15 on my 32. No balance problems, no problems period. They drive much better than the Coker Firestones I took off.

I’ve got 2 set of Diamond Back’s, but they are modern carcass 15” performance tires (but on topic cars). They’re just modern tires with modified sidewalls, not something for many rides here.

 

Thank you again to all of you that responded. Great information. When I was buying tires for my 1959 Corvette I went through the same exercise. I bought Diamond Backs and still have them after five years. The white bands are like new, no problems. True I only drive the Vette some weekends and not far. It is an all original fuel injection 1959 vette with Duntov cam. It was a race car consequently makes 7 miles per gallon. Not for regular driving; However my 1935 Ford will be sort of a daily driver so I need tires that are good for highway.
The only reason I have look into Cokers is because the 650R16 are out of stock with DB. It could be a few months before they get them. I am not in a hurry to get them so I will wait and see what happens.

 

This Coker Tire subject has been kicked around for several years. If you search this and other websites you can see for yourself how many people have complaints about their tires. Out of round, must be "shaved", can't be balanced, poor ride, can't go over 50 mph, whitewall de-lamination, premature wear, whitewall discoloring and it goes on and on. Why anyone would purchase Coker tires after so many people have hade trouble is beyond me.

 

I have 2 friends who were using 15" Coker wide whitewall radials and had the tread come off. Did not go flat. One was a '48 Ford and the other was a '55 T-Bird. Did serious damage to both. I use Diamondbacks.

 

New regular passenger car tires are supposed to be replaced after something like 5 years according to the major manufacturers…do the Coker tires seem to last way longer than that if the owner doesn’t drive the car many miles per year? Or do the Coker’s (if stored out of direct sunlight) dry rot and crack like new tires?

 

I was just thinking of the same thing this AM, but I believe Coker is the only one making vintage bias ply tires. I believe they own Universal and other smaller companies. If this is not correct, please post it here. I'd be happy to give another company my money.

So ridiculous this is still an issue. One would have to assume they simply don't care about putting out a good product.

 

I also believe Coker is a HAMB Alliance vendor. This topic has come up so often, it would be pretty stand up if they came on here and commented on it.

 

I still find it hard to believe people are still surprised by having to sometimes have bias ply tires shaved. There is a reason EVERY tire shop used to have a tire shaver.

 

I thought the suspension was bad on my 57 Ford until I put Diamondbacks on. Turns out the Cokers were just ovals. And for some of us, it isn't a big deal aesthetically to run radials, you barely even see the tire

 

Well I aint a little girl and that's for damn sure. I like to think myself being a young man but I do hate fireworks, newspapers are for wrapping fish in, I wake up every day with a new pain (not talking about bed mates), I hate telemarketers, I like pretty girls but they don't seem to notice me anymore and when I go for a drive I expect my car to go where I point it without a lot of fussing about. Old guy? I didn't think so, not yet anyway but if those are the only two options for using radials....

 

I want to point out the tire I posted with the wire hanging out WAS NOT a Coker tire it was not even 5 years old. when the bias tires wear out on my roadster I will buy another set if they are available. the ones on it have around 12,000 miles on them . they are worn but not worn out

 

I have BF Goodrich 670-15 with 3 5/8 WW from Coker on my Mercury and no problems at all.
It makes no difference if driving 50 or 80 mph.

I know that there are people that have/had problems with these tires but if all of their tires were bad Coker would long be out of business, I guess.

 

I've had a set of Coker 16" bias ply tires on my '40 for 3 years now, the tire shop had no problem balancing them and I have no vibration at 70 mph. Perfectly happy with them and I don't have to worry about the catastrophic failure you can sometimes get with radials...

 

Decades long debate. I’m thinking there is more of a chance of Coker bias ply tires being discontinued, than the chance they will get the complaints down to near zero!

 

People say the same thing about The Hoffman Group but guess what.... they are still in business! Until Coker gains a conscience (which they haven't had since day one, so why start now?) they should be boycotted!

 

it doesn't seem to be all cokers, the A in my avatar is the first set of cokers i bought ,they are BF goodriches bias 15 in and they balanced perfect. the ones i had trouble with are 16in bias firestones. did i see a while back where coker was sold?

 

I have used many from Coker, mostly 15" with no problems. I get great use out of the L-78-15 which is a cheapy and put loads of miles on them. Not so much luck with the 16's though. Always seem to need a shave much like the old days. When I was a kid giving new tires the shave was standard issue. We've become so accustomed to just popping on the radials that we forgot that there was extra process to be followed back in the day.

My Dad was an Atlas dealer at his shop in the late 1950's early 1960's. I remember more than one new Atlas hitting the pile because they couldn't shave it enough to make it round.

Not defending Coker, Just saying things haven't changed and bias plys, no matter who makes them do have their limitations.

 

This has to be considered.
There are literally hundreds of tires offered by Coker. Some of the issues may go all the way back to the parent manufacturer from decades ago. I'm not saying all, but poor features designed into a tire in 1946 will reappear in the modern reproduction. Not all tires were the same quality then, this will hold true in the reproductions.
Let's look at the brands....
Firestone...
Goodyear...
BF Goodrich...
Coker....
There's more, but the above is a good comparison.
Coker....generic period tire basically a no-name tire...
Goodyear and Firestone.....These are name brand "average tires".
BF Goodrich "Silvertowns".....These were high quality maybe almost "top-shelf" tires then. One can assume that the reproduction will continue at least some of the attributes of the parent manufacturer/product.
If you pay close attention to this thread, those that run BF Goodrich Silvertowns, love them.
My point is not all Coker Tires are equal because they were not all "equal" then.

Another issue is modern designs that may not work well such as the "bias-look" radials. These are radials molded as best they can on bias shapes. These tend to be the tires that have the most complaints, maybe because the whole concept is flawed.

Early radials reproductions....Some of these tires may incorporate problems inherent to the original design.

Modern wide whitewalls....These can be trouble....It's just a cheap obsolete bargain basement modern tire with a whitewall.

Seconds....In any manufacturing there is always going to be "seconds" and flawed parts that slip by quality control.

My point is not all Coker tires are the same and it's not really fair to put them all in the same box. It's up to the customer to do the research and find the better ones vs the problematic ones.

Another factor is modern buyers may have unrealistic expectations from a bias tire. Again, this can be a feature inherited from the original design.

 

Most problems would not occur if a tire shaver was a tool that every garage and tire shop still has. If shaving a tire was not a big thing back in the day it would not be a big thing today.
That's even more problematic in Europe: As radials were introduced and used here from the 1950's onward, tire shavers are not existent and I have never seen one in my life.

 

I realize tire shaving was done in the past, but my tire of choice when in HS and in the early to mid ‘80’s were Kelly Springfield SuperCharger tires, I think I used 4 sets, mix of L60-15, G60-15, G 60 14’s. Never had a balance or vibration problem. On an OT Fbody I had, a shop did ball joints and alignment/balance for me, I still recall the guy telling me how “out of round” the tires were. I never felt/noticed a thing. But leaf’s in the rear, coils up front. May that masked it? I dunno.
I worked at an Exxon in Phx for a few years in the early 80’s, all we sold were bias ply tires that we bubble balanced. When we sold radials we’d take the wheels/tires to a shop down the street for (guessing) spin balancing.
I don’t recall weight sizes, but the most I remember using was two about 3 inches long on either side of a wheel.
I just bring this up because it’s definitely a manufacturing thing of the tire. Someone mentioned 16 ozs of weight to balance? That’s crazy.
But makes you think the mold must be okay, not all tires need that, so it has to be in a different part of he process that isn’t correct and repeatable.
That (long winded said) I’d tend to agree that of the thousands and thousands of tires sold, the minority have issues.

 

I’m running BF Goodrich Silvertown 215-R70 14’s on my 57 Tbird
When they balanced them, if you watched the tread it looked like a snake while it was spinning
I had to return two out of four tires

 

I feel like part of the expectations with the Coker tires is the price they cost a lot more than average tires so you expect them to all be good. the old saying you get what you pay for . since you pay a lot you expect alot