The Cooper Discoverer AT3 offers a great balance of price-effectiveness with the ability to handle wet, snow, and dry conditions. The tire performs roughly in the middle in all categories, and that’s not a bad thing for the value price in a retail setting.
For more extreme conditions it's a good idea to get tires with better stopping power. While Cooper certainly isn’t bad in either respect, a few meters difference in braking distance can be critical in some situations.
One advantage of Cooper Discoverer is it’s snow handling. For drivers who do not enjoy snow driving, or face it more than a few times per season, this tire is a great choice because of its relatively low price.
 Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S |  Falken Wildpeak A/T Trail |  Continental TerrainContact A/T |  Sumitomo Encounter AT |  Cooper Discoverer AT3 XLT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Rating |
|
|
|
|
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| Dry Traction | 9.2 | 8.9 | 9.1 | 9.0 | 8.9 |
| Wet Traction | 8.9 | 8.9 | 8.9 | 8.8 | 8.6 |
| Noise | 8.5 | 8.4 | 8.8 | 8.7 | 8.3 |
| comfort | 8.7 | 8.6 | 8.7 | 8.8 | 8.5 |
| Tread Life | 8.6 | 8.8 | 8.6 | 8.8 | 8.6 |
| Braking | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Sharpness | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Durability | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Feel | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Show more |
If you’re looking for a solid value-priced tire that mixes decent on-road characteristics with solid snow and off-road performance, this Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S review will help you decide if this SUV and truck tire is best for you.
Don’t have time to read everything? Here’s a quick summary of our review as well as pros & cons listed.
Today’s SUV & truck owners are looking for balance in their vehicles especially since many SUVs feature intelligent drive systems capable of handling most weather conditions comfortably.
No matter what type of AWD system a vehicle has, what matters most is the rubber that actually connects the vehicle to the road. Cooper designed the Discoverer AT3 4S to handle both off-road duties and regular highway driving with ease.
In order to know what truly works the best for a particular category of tire, we scour through detailed reviews and tests from leading outlets. These reviews and tests offer the real-world experience that can confirm or deny the real-world application of a manufacturer’s tire technology.
Our review will discuss everything from details about wet and dry performance to comparisons on warranty coverage.
Cooper wants you to be able to go anywhere with their Discoverer AT3 4S tires. All-season tires like the Discoverer AT3 4S are best in places where weather can be wet and rainy one day with the potential need to find a place to camp on dirt roads another day. Many reviewers comment on the well-balanced ability to handle soaked highways and puddles then dusty, bumpy side roads on the same day.
Our comprehensive Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S Review will include:
Trucks and SUVs are the primary vehicles for the Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S’s capabilities. Cooper manufactures these tires as All Season because they are intended to be used on the pavement and on dirt roads – whether a construction site or a trip downtown.
Cooper achieves their wet and dry grip performance by offering asymmetrical Micro-Gauge Zigzag sipes with thin grooves that easily dig into slippery pavement or dry roads. A pair of patented Snow Grooves towards the inside and outside of the tire push slush and snow through while maintaining consistent contact within the tires’ footprint.
The result? Drivers with the Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S should feel confident on all types of roads. When the day’s journey brings your SUV from the metro for a meeting to unpaved roads at a worksite, the Discoverer will grip the road well in both places.
The Cooper Discoverer is priced about in the middle of all-season tires at $150 or more depending on the size per tire. Its mid-range pricing is also reflected in its range of abilities against competitors, which we will discuss later.
The Cooper Discoverer AT3’s design handles a wide range of driving conditions well. User reviews compliment the tire’s ability to confidently handle wet and snowy conditions when needed while still offering great dry grip for spins around the city or highway.
One of the intended advantages of an all-season tire is wet and snow performance. Many reviews noted that the Cooper Discoverer AT3 handles occasional snow well, though small issues do start to show after tread wear begins. This is normal for all-terrain tires. Comparatively and technically, Cooper matches up to competitors in the wet performance categories.
Cooper edged out Pirelli in a subjective wet and dry track test. The more expensive Continental and Bridgestone models outperformed for the purpose of driver “feel” on this test.
Wet handling showed Cooper as average too. The test isn’t purely subjective though it does vary based on driver skill and it’s typically more important for aggressive drivers but still shows the Cooper’s ability to handle wet cornering is about average.
Most reviews indicated that the Cooper model handled well on dry surfaces with minimal road noise and good grip. Like with wet handling issues, users expressed small concern for grip and cornering once the tread was worn down, but that is an issue with nearly all tires.
Snow is relatively important in the world of an all-terrain tire. While they are not specifically designed to handle snow in extreme locations like Alaska, the dual channels within the tire treads are designed to cut through slush and snow while still maintaining the best possible contact with the road surface.
As you can see, the difference between competitors and Cooper is pretty significant, even on a subjective test. Drivers felt more confident as Cooper scored a whole point to a point and a half higher than Continental and Pirelli while holding its own against the popular Bridgestone Dueler.
In users’ own words, both SUVs and truck drivers had good experiences driving through slushy and light snow, though most indicated they did not encounter snow as frequently as expected in most North American climates. When snow does fall though, you want to be ready for it and the Discoverer AT3 4S will be ready.
Being subjective, a person who buys a tire like the Cooper Discoverer wants good wet performance because all-terrain tires need to work well in all weather. We’ll first show you a graph from wet performance braking going 80 kilometers per hour.
For being a middle-of-the-road tire for pricing, the Cooper provides what you would expect. The difference between most of the midpack is marginal and has under a foot of difference. The range from first to last is a few meters, which is important in the world of stopping on wet roads
Dry braking was a bit worse by comparison with the difference in the midpack being about 3 feet. The competitor’s tires ranked near Cooper were all within about the same distance, give or take a few feet.
One of the best-represented review segments for the Cooper Discoverer was off-road and highway. Many said that the tires offered good high-speed highway performance and still had the tread necessary for off-road and dirt track driving.
Handling and performance are not the highest priority for an all-season tire, especially amongst performance vehicles; they focus on grip and comfort, and here the Cooper shines.
Here is where things are mixed. Some users complained that Cooper Discoverers have initial road noise that goes down over time. Others complained that the tires are a bit loud after having the initial tread “broken in.” Some users also said that for the aggressiveness of the tread, the tires are pretty quiet.
Some users reported early wear on their tires, especially amongst heavier trucks. Alignment can also cause an issue with wear.
Cooper offers a 65,000-mile tread warranty as well as a 45-day test drive. The test drive concept is fairly unique and welcomed for people who want to experience a tire before committing to one for many years and many thousands of miles.
The Cooper Discoverer isn’t considered a premium brand tire. Most users would consider Cooper a value brand, which actually makes it more valuable since it finishes in the middle to higher on test charts.
At around $150 or more per tire, they aren’t the cheapest tires around, but we’ll go into competitors next. For example, the closely rated Pirelli Scorpion starts at about $10 more per tire than the Cooper Discoverer.
There are plenty of tires on the road, though not as many for the all-terrain category. Here are a few of the best competitors for the
The Cooper Discoverer AT3 offers a great balance of price-effectiveness with the ability to handle wet, snow, and dry conditions. All-terrain tires are meant to work under many conditions and provide good grip in all of them, while also making safe stops. The Cooper Discoverer AT3 performs roughly in the middle in all categories, and that’s not a bad thing for the value price in a retail setting.
If the driver intends to work in more extreme conditions or is frequently in rush hour, it might be worth considering getting slightly better tires with better stopping power. While Cooper certainly isn’t bad in either respect, a few meters difference for an aggressive driver means less risk.
Also, we want to note that one of the biggest advantages to the Cooper Discoverer is it’s snow handling. For the price, it did quite well when handling slushy and wet conditions. For drivers who do not enjoy snow driving, or are just faced with it more than a few times per season, this tire is a great choice because of its relatively low price.
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