Cooper discoverer H/T tire failures: what 72 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Cooper Discoverer H/T, read and classified: which failures owners actually describe, how that mix compares with all tire complaints on file, and at what mileage the tire let go.

By Mark Bishop · Last verified 2026-10-07

The evidence base

72Written owner reports

6Reported crashes

2Reported injuries

2Reported deaths

Crash, injury and death figures are the counts owners themselves reported to NHTSA when filing.

What owners described

Tread or belt separation appears in 33% of these reports; about 2.5× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 72 reports filed against the Cooper Discoverer H/T across every vehicle it was fitted to that include a written account; a single report can describe more than one problem, so they do not total 100%.

Reported problem	This subject	All tire complaints	Relative
Tread or belt separation	33%	13%	2.5×
Sidewall failure	28%	15%	1.9×
Blowout or sudden deflation	22%	20%	1.1×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	8%	6%	1.4×
Cracking or dry rot	7%	9%	0.7×

Mileage at failure

34 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 64,803 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 12,000 and 144,000 miles.

In owners' own words

Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about Cooper Discoverer H/T. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.

THE CONTACT OWNS A 1995 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN EQUIPPED WITH COOPER DISCOVERER H/T TIRES, SIZE P235/75R15 (NA). WHILE DRIVING 70 MPH, THE REAR PASSENGER SIDE TIRE SEPARATED. THE TIRE WAS REPLACED WITH A SPARE. WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 70 MPH, THE REAR DRIVER SIDE TIRE BLEW OUT. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC FOR DIAGNOSTIC TESTING. THE MECHANIC STATED THAT THE TIRE TREAD SEPARATED AND NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. THE TIRES WERE REPLACED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE APPROXIMATE TIRE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 12,000 AND THE VEHICLE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 240,000.

NHTSA complaint 1216627

LEFT CAMPGROUND PULLING PONTOON BOAT, TRAVELED APPROXIMATELY 10 MILES AND RIGHT REAR TIRE SIDEWALL BLEW OUT. CONTACTED TIRE INSTALLER WHO CONTACTED THEIR TIRE DISTRIBUTOR AND WAS TOLD BLOWOUT WAS RESULT OF UNDER INFLATION, EVEN THOUGH NO ONE FROM INSTALLER OR DISTRIBUTOR EXAMINED TIRE. CONTACTED MANUFACTURER VIA EMAIL AND EVEN SENT PHOTOS OF FAILED TIRE AND ONE REMAINING TIRE WITH LARGE "DENT" IN SIDEWALL AND WAS TOLD THEY COULD NOT EVALUATE TIRES FROM PHOTOS. WE REPLACED ALL 4 TIRES WITH NEW ONES OF A DIFFERENT BRAND.

NHTSA complaint 1232247

Tire sizes: 245/70r17. Three tires went bad between November 2022 and March 9th 2023. First tire, the front right, replaced because its outside tread was going bad really quickly. I could see the metal sticking out of it. Two tires need replacing because they are bulging. The back left tire bulged so bad my car was shaking up and down until I took it off. Thought everything was fine but the back right began to shake the car two days later.

NHTSA complaint 1878953

GMC SUBURBAN TIRES SEEMED UNDER INFLATED. UPON INSPECTION MECHANIC DETERMINED THE TIRES HAD A CRACK IN THE SIDEWALL AND WERE UNABLE TO BE REPAIRED. RECALL DOES NOT INCLUDE CONSUMERS TIRES. *KB ***NAR*** LAST MONTH THE CONSUMER NOTICED THAT ANOTHER TIRE APPEARED TO BE UNDERINFLATED. THE CONSUMER ADDED AIR TO 35 PSI. A FEW DAYS LATER IT APPEARED UNDER INFLATED AGAIN. THE CONSUMER TOOK THE VEHICLE TO A TIRE SHOP TO HAVE THE TIRE INSPECTED. ONCE AGAIN THE CONSUMER WAS TOLD THAT THE TIRE HAD CRACKS IN THE SIDEWALL AND THAT THE TIRE WAS UNABLE TO BE REPAIRED. THE CONSUMER REPLACED THE TIRE. THE CONSUMER BELIEVES A PROBLEM WITH THE COOPER DISCOVERER H/T TIRES exists. THE CONSUMER HAS THE LAST TIRE IN HIS POSSESSION.

NHTSA complaint 593348

How to read this

Complaints are voluntarily submitted to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation and are not verified by NHTSA. They are owner-reported problems, not proven defects, and volume tracks how many of a tire were sold as much as how often it failed. What is comparable is the mix: which problems owners describe here versus across every tire complaint on file. That comparison, the mileage distribution and the mode rankings on this page are our analysis of the public record.

Related analysis

Tread or belt separation; 2.5× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Sidewall failure; 1.9× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Cooper Discoverer A/T; 35 reports

All Cooper tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Cooper Discoverer H/T tires?

Across 72 written complaints, the most common description is tread or belt separation, in 33% of reports; about 2.5× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Cooper Discoverer H/T recalled?

Complaints are not recalls. A complaint is a voluntary, unverified owner report; a recall is an official campaign requiring a free remedy. Check the current recall status by DOT date code at the NHTSA recall lookup; that is the only authoritative answer for your specific tire.

At what mileage do Cooper Discoverer H/T tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 64,803 miles, with 8 in 10 between 12,000 and 144,000 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Cooper Discoverer H/T failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 6 crashes and 2 injuries when filing. NHTSA publishes these as reported and does not verify them.

Sources

Last verified 2026-10-07 against the sources below.

NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation; owner complaints dataset (unverified owner reports, US federal government work, public domain).
NHTSA Recalls database, nhtsa.gov/recalls.
Corpus baselines computed over 58,390 complaint narratives longer than 200 characters.