When replacing the tyres on my Toyota Prado, I narrowed my choice to fitting Cooper Tires ATR or BF Goodrich All Terrain T/A tyres. After comparing them, I eventually fitted the Cooper Tires ATR.

Toyota Prado background

I recently purchased a 2005 Toyota Prado GXL 120 series. The car was in immaculate condition with no accessories fitted and still running the original equipment brand of tyres – Goodyear AT20 Grandtreks. These tyres are highway orientated and were perfect for my 6,700 kilometre trip to Tasmania and back in 23 days! The tyres were getting down to the wear marks by the end of the trip.

Goodyear AT20 Grandtreks fitted to a Toyota Prado

Goodyear AT20 Grandtreks fitted to a Toyota Prado

Which tyres? — Cooper Tires ATR or BF Goodrich All Terrain T/A

Our plan is to set my Toyota Prado up for beach and bush camping. It is a blank canvas at the moment, just waiting to have all the fruit fitted. With tyres needing replacing, this was the obvious thing to upgrade first.

I am not planning to go hard core off-roading with the family and loaded with camping gear. The new tyres needed to be able to take me across unsealed roads and along beaches though. All terrain, or ATR, tyres were the obvious choice. My Toyota Prado takes 265/65R17 tyre sizes as standard. At this stage I was not keen to play around with larger rubber.

I quickly narrowed my tyre choice down to two tyres: Cooper Tires advertise heavily in the four-wheel-drive magazines; while checking out other four wheel drive vehicles reveals that BF Goodrich tyres are a popular choice.

Some pros and cons for each tyre:

BF Goodrich All Terrain T/A – apparently an older tread pattern, some negative comment about reliability on the Internet, widely used, look more aggressive (perhaps 60 road/40 offroad) $330 fitted and balanced.
Cooper Tires ATR – heavily advertised, recommended 70% road/30% offroad, 60,000 km guarantee, $315 fitted and balanced.

To maintain the Cooper Tires ATR warranty, an authorised Cooper Tires dealer must rotate and balance your tyres and have your wheel alignment checked every 10,000 kilometres and ensure that there is no mechanical reason that may be causing rapid tyre wear. You must also maintain the correct tyre pressures at all times.

This requirement did not concern me because I had been rotating and balancing mag tyres on my Holden Commodore for several years at every service, so this was actually an extension of the service interval for me. If you have invested $1500 in something, then you are going to look after it aren’t you?

And the winner is …

I ultimately chose to fit the Cooper Tires ATRs to my Toyota Prado. Goodyear Autocare at Woolloongabba fitted the tyres for me. I have also had the Prado’s 110,000 km logbook service performed there. I am hoping that I can coordinate the logbook services with the tyre rotation, thereby saving me a trip to a service centre.

Cooper Tires ATR fitted to my Toyota Prado

Cooper Tires ATR fitted to my Toyota Prado

So far I am pleased with the Cooper Tires ATRs. They have slightly more road noise at highway speeds than the Goodyear AT20 Grandtreks. The noise is certainly not intrusive though. I think that it is time to get offroad and get a bit dirty.

Read my Cooper Tires ATR 25,000 km performance update here.