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by Bryan Irons
Out of all the tires we have beat on for the last year, the Cooper Discoverer AT3 has been on duty for the longest distance, and this isn’t by chance. The AT3 has been there for us through all four seasons of street and off road callings.
The AT designation is quite fitting as the smooth rolling and quiet tire has been a pleasure to be behind the wheel with and wear is minimal compared to a few others in the test here. The finely tuned silica based compound lends itself to this long life and the tire sports a 90,000k warranty. Coupled to the Eagle Alloy wheels, the 315/70/17 tires took a little more weight to balance out then we were expecting, but as we said, the tires roll smooth even after a few trail beatings.
Canadian winter conditions were handled well by the AT3, but when things got really slick, we got really slow. Deep snow on the trail was a fun ride once aired down accordingly.
Two-ply sidewalls in our test tires kept us from really bashing the rocks with reckless abandon but getting traction was pretty simple even with the harder compound. We found that around 8 psi in our Jeep JK got us the traction we wanted without slipping beads. Creeping slowly through the mud and soft sand surfaces proved futile and liberal throttle was warranted to get the tread blocks to clear out.
So, who should own a set of Cooper Discoverer AT3’s? If you need a tire that will deliver a long life on the street without knocking all the fillings out of your head, but up for exploring on the weekend, these might be your baby. Not what we would call on for hard trails and jagged rocks, but for getting out in the woods on the weekend and to work the rest of the time, the AT3 gets our approval.