I like those tires....do you notice a power decrease with those bigger tires?

 

Yeah being that it's a 5 speed and I'm more connected to the engine, I seem to notice that it's a little more sluggish. I also have to make sure I remember that the speedo is a bit off as well, although I'm going to see if they can reprogram my PCM for FDII size tires to help a little with that.

Great job and please give periodic updates on the Cooper Discoverer A/T3 tires performance.

Thanks, will do, if you think of it sometime down the road and want to know how they're performing, shoot me a PM or something...

 

Great job and please give periodic updates on the Cooper Discoverer A/T3 tires performance.

 

Hey! I just got the same exact tires installed today. First impression is that they are a little louder than the stock Affinity's I had but do much better over bumps. I'm a little worried about how close they are to the fender but a lot of peeps here haven't had problems with bigger tires.

Do you mind me asking what you paid?

Here's some pics.. couldn't get full body pics since I was in my garage but I'll post them when I get them.

 

I would guess you're going to get some rubbing, unfortunately. I had to pound the inner fender back (area marked in red below) a little to give the tires more room, and I have the RR lift. No rub whatsoever though after pounding on it a little. And yes, I've noticed they soften bumps quite a bit better than those little affinitys.

I paid $155/tire plus install. I didn't think that was too bad of a price for how expensive some tires are now.

The second picture's just to show clearance, I didn't have any rubbing there or anything.

 

Argh! Got the dreaded rub today when backing out of a parking spot and then trying to maneuver the tiny parking lot I was in. Tomorrow I will pounding away at the wheel wells. What about the plastic part though? It seems to be rubbing against that too.

Mine was about the same price.

 

Hmm, mine hasn't rubbed on the plastic part of the wheel wells at all, maybe because I have the lift. I think I may know what part you're talking about, that plastic rib that extends towards the tire from the back of the wheel well? Wherever it's at, if it's plastic, you might be able to trim it. If the rubbing isn't real bad you can always just leave it and as the tires wear the rub will become less and less anyways.

 

Thanks for all your help MechE. I looked today while pounding at that spot and the tire clears that plastic "rib" you mention. I was talking about the front when turned inward. It's close but I don't think it's touching and that's at full lock.

How far back did you pound that spot back anyway? I did a little pounding on each side and it doesn't seem to be moving back at all. Still rubbing at full lock. Any tips you can give me?

 

So I took another look at the issue of the front of the tire rubbing against the plastic part of the wheel well. I cant be sure (because I kept touching everything so I don't know if I made the mark or the tire) but I think it rubs in one spot about the size of a quarter on the drivers side only. With the tire turned inward all the way to the right take a look at the drivers side wheel well... there is almost no clearance. On the passenger side with the tire turned inward all the way to the left there is almost an inch of clearance from tire to plastic. Can anyone explain this?

 

Get a bigger hammer. Kidding aside though, I didn't move it much. Maybe 1/2 inch at the very most. You have to make sure you're hitting below the brace on the back side of that weld seam, other wise you won't move it. We pounded the whole area (what I had marked in red in that picture) back probably about 1/4 inch and then pounded just the edge of the metal to kind of curl it back and away from the tire, if that makes sense. So maybe 1/2 inch total. We jacked it up and took the wheels off too so we could get some leverage on the hammer. If you're trying to pound it with the tire in the way, you're probably not gunna be able to get enough force to move that metal much... Hope that helps.

I did take a picture of the front of the tire on the passenger side to show clearance and like you mentioned, there's plenty of clearance there. I guess I can check the driver's side to make sure there's clearance, but I didn't notice it before when I looked. Also, I'm not so concerned with it rubbing in that location because the tire is moving away from the edge of the plastic, and it's just plastic anyways. I wanted to pound that metal area away because it was rubbing bad and I figured that metal would be strong enough to really eat at the tire over time.

 

Well I went back and pounded some more after I posted yesterday and went to a parking lot to do some tests. It still rubbed but that was with me forcing the wheel all the way to either side. Came home and pounded some more but didn't retest. I couldn't get the damn lugs to come off (the factory lug wrench sucks and I couldn't find my good one) so I just pounded with the wheels turned in. Maybe this weekend I will take them off and do it right.

 

Yeah with a little more leverage with the wheel off, you might be able to move it far enough to minimize the rubbing. Make sure you get some undercoating of some kind on that bare metal after hammering it too, and on the edge of that weld seam. I used POR15 on mine.

 

Yea I planned on doing the undercoating. Thanks again for all of your help and sorry for hijacking your thread.

One more question though.... how noisy are yours? Mine seem to have a whirrel sound coming from the left front tire. Would this indicate the balance is off? It doesn't pull to either side... just noisy.

 

No problem. Mine are noisier than stock of course, but far from what I would consider a noisy tire. I had A/Ts on my previous vehicle and drive other vehicles with A/T tires so I don't find them unusually loud. Usually if the balance is off you will get vibration at a certain speed moreso than noise. If you've had it up to interstate speeds and no vibrations I wouldn't worry about the balance being off.

Edit: Post some pictures of the whole vehicle with those tires if you can. I'd like to see what they look like on a non-lifted pat.

 

Edit: Post some pictures of the whole vehicle with those tires if you can. I'd like to see what they look like on a non-lifted pat.

Yea I planned on it... just haven't had time. Probably this weekend.

 

Washed the Pat today and finally took some pics... there are more in my album.

Old pic for comparison:

Another old one:

 

Looks good! Much better than stock. How's the rubbing now?

 

Thanks. No more rubbing and I painted the area with the rust resistant paint like you suggested. Lots of noise though... sometimes worse than other times. And since I'm a worrier I think it's a wheel bearing or feel like I'm damaging the tranny and/or engine with bigger tires on. Are there any long term effects on the engine or tranny I should be worried about?

Also do you have any pics of your Pat on regular ground (i.e. not snow) so I can see how it looks with the lift? Might be the next thing I have to do but wont be for a while.... $$$$.

 

The added rolling resistance of the larger tires is going to put more load on the engine and transmission. Enough to cause problems? I don't think so, personally. Without hearing the noise it's hard to say about that, does it just sound like tire whine or is it a metallic sound?

You know what, it's a nice day today. I'm going to go see if I can find a decent place to take a couple pictures...

 

Hokay, here you go, a bunch more pictures, sans snow. I still took them off the pavement, as is the place where I think jeeps look best, but I found a pretty flat spot to take them at. I also found a new trail that I had never been on before, not far outside of town. And as is the usual, it seems, the jeep found me some wildlife while we were out!

 

A couple more. I think I might send the first one in to jeep, to see how much they'll pay me to use it in their brochures.

Second one is of the hill I had to come up to get to that spot. It was actually pretty steep with some decent sized rocks- it definitely heated the clutch up a little.

 

Nice pics! The sound is more or a whirreling noise.... not too loud. I'm about 95% sure its the tires since the noises began right after. It's probably nothing...

 

Yeah I'm sure whirreling is just the tires. I have noticed that mine have seemingly gotten a little louder since I got them, maybe because the rubber compound has stiffened up a little. It's still not to the point of bothering me though. Gas mileage has also been pretty consistent, maybe lost at most 1 mpg. Have you noticed any difference?

 

Went down a bit but I'll have a more accurate reading next time I fill up. My last fuel up included a lot of starting and stopping. I'll be multiplying my actual mileage readings by 1.07 to get the "real" number of miles driven to compensate for the larger tire diameter. According to 1010tires.com calculator the speedo difference is 6.892%.

 

Yeah after getting mine reprogrammed it's only about 3.5% off. Before I got it reprogrammed I was constantly calculating in my head how fast I was going so I wasn't speeding. I just filled up though and with mostly city driving I got a little over 26 mpg. I'm happy with that.

 

Update on my MPGs: One week of driving 20% city/80% highway to work + my trip to Cleveland and back gave me 25.4 MPGs. I'm happy with that since my "all time best" on fuelly was 26.1.

I'd also like to report that there is no more rubbing since I pounded in the inner fender a bit.

meche, did the dealer charge you to recalibrate the speedo? and can they only recalibrate to stock sizes? I need to get this done...

 

Good to hear that the tires are working well for you!

Yes, the dealer charged me 1/2 hour labor to calibrate the speedo, so like $45. The largest size they can program is the largest size that came stock on any Patriot, which was 215-65-17 from the FDII patriots. It does help get the speedo a little closer, according to GPS it cut the discrepancy in half. Now it's close enough that I don't really worry about it much, unless I'm on the interstate at 75-80mph. (speed limit is 75 on the interstate here)

 

Just at a local shop here in town.

 

epper:
Thanks to you guys I just ordered these same tires. I have the RRO lift kit in a box in my closet since my birthday 2 months ago. I've been contemplating tires since then and these were on my short list of well reviewed aggressive looking tires, and thanks to your pics of them on the patriot I picked them. Thanks guys.

 

I'm sure they will look great! I will probably be selling mine soon because I want to get something different and will probably trade the Pat in soon... looking at a '12 Charger. So if anyone is interested let me know (won't ship btw but can meet if not too far. My zip is 44505). I'll put them in the Outpost when they are officially for sale. Could be months from now but just giving a heads up.

 

i'm getting these put on my riot by the end of the month

any advice?

should i get the installer to bash out a bit of metal to accomodate the rub?