Cooper Tire & Rubber Company announced the launch of new Cooper-branded truck and bus tires aimed at fleet and OEM market. Cooper will launch three application-based tire series available beginning in May – Pro Series for long haul, Work Series for regional haul and pickup and delivery segments and Severe Series for mixed-service applications.
Cooper has sold its Roadmaster brand tires in the commercial truck replacement tire market since 2007 and entered the trailer OEM market with Wabash National in 2011. In 2015, Cooper launched its Fleet Service national account program with a focus on Roadmaster tires for smaller fleets.
“We needed to get some experience with OEMs and fleets and get our national program up and running, and all this was in preparation for the launch of our Cooper brand,” said Gary Schroeder, director of Cooper’s global truck and bus tire business.”
All Cooper brand truck and bus tires are built with a full-width four steel belt package and come with a seven-year, two-retread warranty with a full replacement value on the first 50 percent of tread life on Pro and Work Series tires.
“We are targeting this brand to sell to fleets,” said Phillip Mosier, Cooper Tire’s manager of commercial tire development. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of success selling Roadmaster brand through wholesale to owner-operators and small fleets. The technology and performance expectations for medium and large fleets are different, and these tires are designed and engineered to focus on those customers.”
The first Cooper Pro Series tire will be the LHD drive tire, which is SmartWay-verified and features a 30/32-inch tread depth and was designed for long tread life, better fuel efficiency and casing integrity. LHS (steer) and LHT (trailer) tires will round out the Pro Series lineup and are expected to launch in 2019.
Work Series tires will start with the RHA (all-position) model with a 22.5/32-inch tread depth and scrub-resistant tread compound. The RHD (drive) tire features aggressive traction and stone resistance, and the RHT (trailer) tire for spread-axle and specialty trailer applications.
Mosier said Cooper’s Severe Series tires feature heavy-duty construction to withstand heavy scrub and cut/chip extreme operating environments. The first tire in the series is the MSA (all-position) tire for waste haul applications and has a 24/32-inch tread depth.