New Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S - Ice Testing

Cooper AT3 4S - ICE TESTING NOTES

We finally managed to get sufficient ice without snow, to be able to test how the new tires deal with this road surface. Two of our 13 Group cars who have Cooper 4S installed had the required weather and the time to run the tests. Our tests are e bit boring and extensive, but they allow you to make your own decision. We also explain our conclusions about what you can see:

1. You can clearly make the difference between 2 tires and 4 tires, both in traction and in breaking.
2. Because of this 2 sets of tires difference you now know that they do interact with iced surfaces in a significant way for a car.
3. You have all types of ice tested (slush ice, strong ice, wet ice). The most slippery being the wet ice.
4. In such ice testing there is no snow on snow traction, only the tire design biting level counts, its self cleaning, the chemical composition with its the micro traction and the sipes design.
4. You also have some lateral stability tests on asphalt done by the blue car. Do note that the blue car road also has a road incline but the video does not show it well.
5. The zig-zag tests prove to you that at a decent speed adapted to the weather, the car is controllable on ice and in a worse case scenario, the driver can still have driving wheel input.
6. The tire pressures on the cars where 1.8 ATMs on the blue and 1.9 ATMs on the green one. Tire size is 215/70 R16.
7. For ATs in general and for Cooper in particular, 4 ATM deflation (2.2 to 1.8) adds almost 35% more traction, sufficient to jump you from meah/nice to wow/cool.
8. The test cars, the Dacia Duster, are light SUVs and we expect the tires to perform even better on heavier cars in such scenarios since they will have more surface pressure.
CONCLUSION: The AT3 4S perform on ice at the level of medium+ priced winter tires or expensive all seasons tires. They do though beat the shit out of classic all seasons in snow and mud. The AT3 4S does get top marks in ice though, at lateral slide stability.

PS. Hope it helps, please remember to subscribe, share and join the FB group to find out more about our real user style tests. #Cooper #AT34S #Duster #Dacia #Trails

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