Cooper CS4 Touring

Throughout its eighty-one year history, Cooper Tire has avoided the OEM market, preferring instead to stick to its role as a replacement tire manufacturer. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Ohio-based company has a lot riding, literally, on its latest offering, the CS4 Touring. Clearly, one of the most important products in its history, Cooper spent some $200 million to develop the new rubber.

To demonstrate the CS4's capabilities and underscore the confidence in their product, Cooper invited us out to their Tire and Vehicle Test Center in Persall, Texas, a small rural town 55 miles southwest of San Antonio. Built in 1999, the 1,000 acre site features a two-mile oval, 1.3-mile dry handling course, 14 acre wet pad, and an off-road test trail used for the development of truck and SUV tires. In addition, the Center serves as a source of revenue for Cooper, who rents the facility out to automakers and competing tire makers alike.

According to Cooper, the CS4, a premium all-season touring tire designed for cars, minivans and crossovers, is its most extensively tested product ever, undergoing ten thousand hours of lab tests and five million miles of vehicle testing before being deemed ready for market. To put that in perspective, five million miles is the total amount of paved road in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain combined.

The CS4 is the first tire designed using Cooper's new R-Tech (Response Technology) construction. R-Tech's features include strategically placed, variable density nylon belts designed to minimize flat spotting and maximize even tread wear and a special nylon wrap that shrinks under heat to improve rigidity and dry traction. The tread design also features a wide tread arch, an open shoulder design, and wide grooves aimed at improving wet traction.

Another innovation is the use spring vents instead of traditional vents during manufacturing. Thanks to the process, a brand new CS4 is devoid of the small rubber "hairs" typical of a new tire. While spring vents are more expensive, the cost is offset by the lower quantity of waste rubber.

The CS4 is available in two tread designs, a T-rated four-rib and the H- and V-rated five-rib. The T-rated tire features one large center aqua channel, while the H- and V-rated variants have two, one on either side of the center rib. Combined with the tire's silica tread compound, the design makes for strong wet handling and hydroplaning resistance, Cooper claims.

After the presentation, we headed out to the track at last, where Cooper had only the base, T-rated CS4 available. A bummer, but we made do. Four tests and demonstrations were planned for the day: a wet braking test, dry handling demonstration, wet handling test, and a performance demonstration with Cooper's performance advisor Johnny Unser.

The wet 60-0 braking test involved a pair of Cadillac DTS sedans, one wearing the stock Continental ContiTour rubber, the other the CS4. The CS4 proved a better stopper, helping to halt the car between three and 10 feet quicker, depending on the driver. Cooper's own tests showed a difference between 10 and 12 feet.