Coker Tires - Is it just me??

Hey 'visor', cool coupe...

 

Hell ya! Nice car! And it looks perfect with those tires.

 

After 35 years in the tire business, I've read this thread with interest, and was there during the transition from bias to radials.

For what it's worth, here are some procedures we used to address ride disturbance issues.

1. Indicate the bare wheel runout, laterally and radially.
ANY tolerance will be magnified at the tread surface.
Wheel needs to be stud mounted, and checked at the bead seat.
We actually found one hub with studs inconcentric with the bearings.

2. Mount the tire with tire lube, match mount if the tire is
marked. OverInflate to 50psi, drop to 30. Mount on balancer, spin up, and confirm that beads are seated equally by looking at the tire GG ring's relation to the wheel flange (if it is concentric). If the ring is hopping, deflate, relube, reinflate and recheck.
If the ring is still hopping, check the bead for mold shift, measure from the GG ring to the toe (inside) of the bead. Should be equal all over, if it is remount and recheck. . We're trying to get two objects as close to zero runout as possible, combined.
Check the runout on the tread, same as the wheel. Nylon, bias ply tires may NOT read accurately if cold, stored standing in a rack, or parked and allowed to cool off with the vehicle weight on them.

3. Trial balance the assembly. If it calls for excessive weight in one spot, mark the wheel and tire at that spot. Deflate, break down the beads and rotate the tire 180* on the wheel. Repeat the process.

4. If the weight doesn't reduce, or shows in the same spot for either the wheel or tire, replace the one and start over. Obviously hard to do, if you're 100's of miles away from the supplier, and you've mounted the tire (no returns?)

5. If the assembly balances out, mount it on the vehicle and test drive it. An assembly that is balanced on a machine at its calibration may not be in balance at another speed.
You may be able to run in and out of the imbalance.

6. If the imbalance occurs at your favorite speed, you will have to spin up the assy. ON THE VEHICLE to find that sweet spot and balance accordingly.

All this is elementary and redundant to a lot of you, I'm sure, but we re-mounted and balanced HUNDREDS of tires mounted improperly by other dealers, brought to us for ride disturbance issues. And it wasn't all tire related; we found a lot of bad u-joints, kingpins, flywheels, driveshafts, frame flex, alignment settings, etc. If it is the tire, contact the supplier, present your FACTUAL EVIDENCE, and ask that the tire be replaced under their or the mfg.'s warranty.

 

Now that's a great post thanks!!!

 

Hot rod A knows his stuff and I want Visors car end of story. If you have problems I'm sure Cokers will help,call and be human about it.

 

Ive read most all of these posts about Coker tires, and I believe the problem is not purely the tires that Coker sells,but simply the type of tires they sell and we seem to want to run on our cars.[appearance over function if you will].....

Bias tires are the worst type tires there ever were.
That is why they are reserved for use on tractors,ATV's and golf carts today.....

That is also why they were abandoned as the standard of tire making demanded improved quality.

now that they are only made in limited quantities by very few manufacturers,and probably utilizing different materials and techniques that previously were used in early tire making, we should not be suprised they are still a lousy tire choice.....
I personally value my life and safety more than "the look" a tire gives my car.

Its a trade off-you simply dont run bias tires-or you enjoy all the built-in features that running them entail......

 

Nice! Where's the snow on the ground?

 

I'm with you. I'm very happy with both sets of tires I've purchased from Coker. I'm soon to buy another set.

 

HotrodA - great post!

Coker recommends a road force balancer (e.g. Hunter). Will a road force balancer show that the tire is actually out of round as opposed to a conventional balancer which lets an out of round tire be perfectly balanced?

 

I'm sure someone will call BS on this, but it's true nonetheless.

In 1985, when I was 16, I had a 54 Chevy 5-window pickup. It was lowered and had a warmed up 283 and when I bought it, it was pure 80's....centerline wheels (the ones everyone ran at the time with the rivets all the way around the perimeter), big tires, cheesy interior, cheesy steering wheel, etc.

The first things I did to it all revolved around making it look more "traditional". Of course, that wasn't en vogue at the time, but my tastes have always been traditional. It just took the hotrodding world 20+ years to align with my tastes.

Anyway. I immediately ditched the mags, found some steelies and little caps and put on bias plys. The old man who ran the tire shop thought I was crazy. In fact, I made a deal with him and got the bias plys for free in exchange for the Centerlines, tires and all....even swap.

He probably laughed as I drove away.

There's a point to all this. The damn 54 immediately rode worse and started chasing grooves in the road and it hadn't done that before. And...it did wobble a bit at certain narrow bands of speed. So...I simply tried to avoid running in that band.

I did it for the looks. To me, it looked a million times better. Everyone, including my dad, criticized me for it, but I had a look I was after, and I was willing to pay the price by running inferior technology. (Ask any woman in high heel shoes...she'll tell you they hurt and they're hard to walk in, but they're willing to put up with it to look good)

I'm gonna run bias plys on my 54 Ford tudor soon. And yes, my dad still thinks it's incredibly dumb.

 

2 years ago i ran coker radials on my plymouth , on the way to santa maria had a blowout in the first mile after putting them on and barely made it before blowing out a second one . tread seperated , since then im back to running bias ply 6/70s firestones

 

Its obvious they have problems. Everybody has had issues with them. But the main problem is Cokers dont give a shit customer service. Its like they know they got you by the balls and dont give a shit. Im going to take a picture of all the wrong tubes they have sent me you could float half of New York City with them. Wheels that came in that looked like they had been dropped out of a airplane. I had a 7.00-18 that was as round as brick and they bitched and griped telling me i was a idiot and they didnt have a replacement for it blah blah blah. I found one on their blem site for 39.00 that didnt say Firestone on both sides and it was smooth as silk.

 

Ive been running diamond backs for over 15 years, there on my chopped 48 pontiac right now. Must have had over 8 or 10 cars with them. I get them from white wall candy store in southern ca. Had one problem were they were shipped ups must have sit something heavy on two of them wrapped together, black bled into white wall on the other, problem taken care of no problem. Also use to run remington bias ply. They would road walk a little but had the on a 39 buick for four years. One set of cokers was enough for me.
Foot

 

to the guys that dont have the vibration problems.

how are you having them mounted?
do you get them warm before balancing?
do the tire monkeys mount and dismount the tires several times to get the least amount of weights possible?
are you running beads inside instead of lead weights?

yesterday i stopped by a place called Hooten tire in Sacramento that has been their since the early 60's. the guys in their told me that the tires should have colored dots on them. the dots are supposed to tell you where the high and lows are, and where to place the valve stem.
these guys have a white wall shaver and have been doing it for years, they also have a tire truer but its in their reno store.

i also have a local big truck alignment place around the corner from me and they have a on the car balancer, so i may check with them to. they have also been in business forever.

i think that some of the problem lies on the tire guy not doing his best to make it right. im sure that the tires arnt perfect but they are also molds that are probably 60+ years old. and Coker should address that.

what bothers me, is that most of us would rather run a Chinese radial instead of a American bias. why is it that the Chinese companies can make millions a day and still produce a quality product, but the ones that we want are made in the good ol U.S.A and are made like they dont care, and yet charge us a premium on top of it.

 

I haven't had any problems with mine. Nothing special on the mounting, but I'm running Dyna Beads.

 

My last set a friend mounted for me on his own machine. I used new, powder coated steel wheels and a local shop, Kennedy's, balanced them. They took very little weight and only on the inside. I've been upwards of 90 mph with them with no problems. 80 mph sustained with no problems. 5.60x15 front and 8.20x15 rears.

 

Because they are using a current tire technology not one that was developed 100 years ago and they have a billion cars on the road in the world to sell to compared to MAYBE a couple 100,000.

 

You know the bottom line is this. If you wanna run radials, run radials. They're cheaper and probably work better. But we're talking about old cars here. Supposedly traditionally inspired old cars and hot rods. Bias tires fit that definiton better. If you ever went 50 mph in a model T you were flying. If you want your lead sled or hot rod to handle like a modern car you're going to have to make a lot of changes and then your creeping into the world of street rods. We all give breaks to the guys that want to run radials but traditional styled rods and sleds will always look better with bias tires. At least that's what I think.

 

Yep

 

so they "coker" should be able to take more time and make sure that the product is perfect.

i am a small contractor, that doesnt mean i give a crap product because i do less than the bigger guys.

i fully understand new vs old, but thats not what this is about. this is about quality control.

how many of the guys here where building cars when there was nothing but bias ply available? and how many of them had to go through this everytime the got a new set of tires?

the whole point is that coker made it a goal to keep providing us with traditional tires, at least they can make it the best that they can. and for the price they should.

 

I am with your Dad. This is to funny!! heeheehee For looks.

 

They also had shops that knew how to mount and balance and shave a bias ply tire. I would guess given hotroda's post that the vast majority of guys who had their tires installed and balance and had problems did not go to someone that went to the lengths that he described as needed to get bias ply tires to work. Most tire places have a 18 year old kid throwing tires on slapping them on the balancer and slapping some weights on. Most certainly don't bring a car in the minute you arrive so the tires are still warm.

We also have no idea how many tires got thrown aside back in the day by guys who actually knew what they were doing when mounting bias ply tires and knew what to look for in a bad tire. Everyone says they had no problems back when they used bias plys all the time but they were also going to a tire store that if the tire was bad they had another right there to replace it. My guess is a lot of tires were sent back to manufacturers. The difference is the customer didn't have to send it back to a specialty manufacturer to get it replaced.

There is a reason tire manufacturers went away from bias ply tires. They are not a very good technology. To expect more out of something than it is capable of is unrealistic.

 

i understand exactly what your saying and im not try to argue with anybody.
but my point is if we all went with the newest tech, we would all driving my wifes hybrid kia

we all as hot roders make sacrifices, whether it be a 2" tall windshield, bieng pulled over for code violations, or using a 70 year old flathead and so on.

why build a 200 hp $6000 bangor when you can buy a 400 hp $2000 ls ? because it what we do. but when you pay the guy to machine you banger you at least expect it to work.

this isnt a debate about technology, its about a product that ask a premium price and substandard quality .

 

Not trying to argue either but what I am saying is the substandard quality is tied into the technology. It is a technology that is prone to issues which is why tire manufactures moved away from it. In my mind those issues are multiplied by the fact that most tire stores probably don't have any idea how to deal with bias ply tires and treat them like radials.

There is a reason it took almost 400 post before someone came on that actually knew what they were talking about in regards to mounting bias plys it is no longer common knowledge. It sounds like the guys that have Coker mount their tires have fewer problems as well which again would indicate when someone that knows what they are doing mounts and balances them there are fewer "quality" issues.

I am going to run bias plys on my truck but I don't expect to be able to scream down the highway at 90 mph with no issues either.

 

i completely agree that most of it is the on the installer, and i know that im taking a step bakwards in tech, but like my previous post it what we do to look right.

i think we need to hear some more guys that got them to work and how they did it.

if i have to drive to fresno and have coker do it right, im all for it. i want these tire, i just want the to roll round.

 

Little off subject,but what about the Exelsior radials----any pro or cons on them? I like their tread deaighn,but anyone using them,& if so any problems with them?

 

I wrote a review on them here:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=729926&highlight=malcolm+roadster&showall=1



Malcolm

 

Well, my buddy bought a set of their radials, and had them{Coker} mount and balance them. He's been back twice and still has a lump, they even replaced one tire. They've cooperated so far, but his tires still aren't round. As to old vs new tech There is no question radials are better. But there were a lot of safe quality miles put on bias ply tires when that was all that was available. I also know of a set of high pressure antique tires that are about 4 or 5 years old. They have yet to turn a mile on the highway and I wouldn't want them for free. The sidewalls are cracked that you can see the cords. I own a set of high pressures made by Universal in Elizabethtown, PA when it was owned by Ann Kline. This was LONG before Coker bought them, tires are at least 30-35 years old. Tread and sidewalls are still soft, no cracks. Old tires can be made with quality and safety in mind.

 

Thanks Malcolm,
Now I'm REALLY perplexed as to what to buy LOL