Six Years Later - Cooper S/T Maxx Tire Review

TL;DR - I have been extremely happy with Cooper S/T Maxx tires over the last six years. I would not hesitate to recommend them as one of the best tires you can run for the type of exploring that I do.

Fantastic tires.

I think it's important to recognized that all tire impressions are relative to whatever one knows or is used to. In that light, for as long as I've run 33" tires, I've been running Cooper S/T Maxx in a 255/85R16 size. Effectively 33x10", I've liked that these are a skinny tire, for several reasons:

• Skinny tires weigh less because there's simply less material.
• They are covered (more) by the wheel well, so less mud thrown onto the truck.
• They present a smaller profile, so there's less wind resistance (and noise) when traveling on the highway.

I've also liked many other aspects of the S/T Maxx

• They are a hybrid tire - more aggressive than an all-terrain (AT), but less aggressive than a mud-terrain (MT). They've never let me down from a traction perspective on wet/dry/snow pavement, dirt, mud, or rocks. I'm not a snow wheeler, so I can't really speak to snow.
• They are stout - Through five sets of five tires, I've never gotten a trail flat with the S/T Maxx. I've chewed up the firewalls and torn chunks out of the tread, but the tires have ticked along without a hitch.
  
  

  

  I ran this tire for years - all the way down to the wear bars - after getting this gash. It never failed.

• They last a long time - with regular rotation (at each ~7500-mile oil change), I get approximately 60-70,000 miles out of a set of five tires.
• The beginning tread depth is great - 18.5/32nds of an inch. Lots of traction with those deep lugs.
• Road noise isn't bad - this is subjective, but I think they are a relatively quiet tire.
• Least important - they look good.

That's not to say there aren't drawbacks:

• They are only available in E-load - stiff even at low tire pressures, they don't conform to variations in the road as nicely as a softer C-load tire would.
• They are expensive - each tire costs upwards of $350 or more.
• They don't come in narrow sizes above 33" on 16" rims.

Overall, I'd argue that these are - or at the very least, have been - some of the best hybrid tires on the market. For those who use their vehicle the way I do - in varied terrain across both pavement and dirt - I would not hesitate to recommend them highly, and I'd be surprised if there weren't S/T Maxx in my future.

 

 

 

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