Cooper CS5 Grand Touring Tire Review

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‍About the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring

As its name suggests, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring is a touring all-season tire, designed to meet the needs of the everyday driver.

Released as a replacement for CS4, this new tire features several enhancements, to ensure it can deliver a capable performance in dry and wet conditions.

As one of the company’s newest touring tires, the CS5 can fit a wide range of vehicles like compacts, sedans, sub-compact cars, minivans, and crossovers, just to name a few.

Design Features and Technologies

The Cooper CS5 Grand Touring is a grand touring all-season tire, designed to deliver assured traction and a comfortable ride in a wide range of weather conditions.

To achieve these goals, Cooper has equipped it with a wide range of performance features such as:

Advanced Silica Tread Compound

The Cooper CS5 Grand Touring comes with an advanced silica tread compound. This tread compound is engineered to deliver enhanced performance in a wide range of road conditions and surfaces.

According to Cooper, the CS5 grand touring tire’s silica content is four times the content that you will find in other tires in this class.

Consequently, you can expect its performance to be better compared to most of the other tires in its category. For instance, it may outperform some of the other grand touring tires in areas like acceleration, braking distances, fuel usage, braking distances, as well as overall traction.

Asymmetric Tread Compound

The tire’s silica tread compound has been molded to form an asymmetric tread pattern. Thanks to this design, you can easily rotate the tire from side to side, thus helping to minimize uneven tread wear. Also, this design may help the tire to deliver reliable performances over a long period.

Outboard Shoulders

Cooper has also outfitted the tire’s tread with outboard shoulder blocks, featuring large tread blocks. This design helps to make the CS5 more responsive while allowing it to deliver safe high-speed stability.

The large tread blocks help to create a larger contact pact, thus helping to improve the tire’s grip and traction in dry conditions.

Inboard Shoulders

Besides the outboard shoulders, this tire also comes with inboard shoulders, featuring a higher sipe density. These inboard shoulders work together with the tire’s lateral grooves, resulting in enhanced hydroplaning resistance.

3D Micro-Gauge Siping

The CS5’s tread also features 3D micro-gauge siping. Placed on the tire’s entire tread depth, the 3D micro-gauge siping provides additional biting edges, which will come in handy when you are driving in snowy conditions.  

Wear Square

Cooper has also outfitted the tire with its proprietary maintenance indicators, known as Wear Square indicators.

Positioned deep inside the tire’s circumferential grooves, these indicators will increasingly become visible as the tread wears down.

Therefore, it will be easy to monitor your tires’ level of wear. And once the Wear Square indicators flush with the surface, it will be time to replace your set of Cooper CS5 tires. Otherwise, driving with such tires comes with serious safety risks.

Performance in Different Conditions

As mentioned earlier, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring is a touring all-season tire. Therefore, drivers expect it to deliver reliable performance in dry, wet and light snowy conditions.

But does it perform accordingly? I installed a set of this tire on a Nissan Altima and gave it a run on different surfaces. And I made the following observations regarding its overall performance:

Performance on Dry Tarmac

After buying a set of new tires, most people assume that traction is guaranteed on dry surfaces. But this is not always the case. In fact, if you buy a low-quality touring tire, it will struggle to deliver reliable traction in dry conditions.

The good news is, I didn’t experience such challenges with the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring. As one of the best all-season grand touring tires on the market, its performance on dry surfaces is outstanding.

Compared to some of the other tires in its class that I have previously tested, I can confidently say that the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring is in the top half.

Traction remained adequate all through, the cornering grip was more than adequate and the braking distances were short. Even when I pushed the Altima to the limits, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring didn’t struggle with traction or cornering grip.

Another area that this tire performed well is straight-line stability, even when you are driving at higher speeds. In fact, it’s one of the best in the class.

One area that the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring lags behind the competition is responsiveness. It doesn’t react to steering input as fast as you would want. However, you will only notice such issues when are driving on the track. For normal driving, its responsiveness is adequate for a daily driver.

Wet Performance

The Cooper CS5 Grand Touring doesn’t hold back when it comes to wet surfaces. It performed much better than I had expected, considering its price range.

It handled wet conditions effortlessly. The traction was adequate and the cornering grip was excellent, thus making it easy to maneuver on the wet track as easily.

Its outstanding wet performance can be credited to the lateral and the four wide circumferential grooves on its surface. These grooves help to channel water away from beneath the tire’s tread, resulting in superb hydroplaning resistance.

Also, I didn’t experience any performance-related issues when driving with this tire on damp surfaces. Acceleration was brisk, braking was top-notch and cornering grip was as reliable as always.

Overall, it’s almost hard to find a fault with this tire’s performance on wet surfaces. So, if you live in an area that rains frequently, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring will serve you well. It provides adequate traction and grip, needed to provide safe driving in such conditions.

Performance in Snowy Conditions

Is the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring a capable performer in snowy conditions? According to drivers who have used this all-season grand touring tire, it provides adequate traction on roads covered with light or thin layer of snow.

So, if you encounter deeper, you will struggle to drive with a set of this tire. Also, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring provides almost no grip when you are driving over ice, thus limiting its use in winter conditions.

Simply put, this tire is only ideal for driving in shallow snow. Hence, if your area experiences harsh wintry conditions, you should equip your vehicle with a set of dedicated winter tires.

Ride Quality

As you may expect, the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring provides a refined ride. When returning from the test ride, I enjoyed a smooth, quiet and comfortable ride throughout the journey.

It absorbed surface imperfections with ease and there was almost no noise coming from the tire, even when I was driving at highway speeds. It remains one of the most refined all-season touring tires I have used so far.

Warranties and Guarantees

The Cooper CS5 Grand Touring comes with two warranties. A materials and workmanship warranty and tread wear warranty. Cooper has further backed this tire with a 45-day road test.

Materials and Workmanship Warranty

If your Cooper CS5 Grand Touring tire becomes unserviceable due to materials and workmanship defects during its usable tread life, Cooper will replace it with a comparable new one free of charge.

And unlike other tires from this brand, this warranty covers this tire for an unlimited time. So, if your tire becomes unusable under this warranty, Cooper will offer a replacement free of charge, regardless of the remaining tread on the tire.

Tread Wear Warranty

Cooper has backed this tire with an 80,000-mile treadwear warranty. But unlike the above warranty, the treadwear warranty is prorated. Therefore, you will contribute a certain percentage of the tire’s replacement cost.

Under this warranty, if your Cooper CS5 Grand Touring wears out uniformly across its tread down to its Wear Square indicators without reaching 80,000 miles, Cooper will replace it on a pro-rated basis.

An authorized Cooper tire dealer will determine your pro-rated amount by multiplying the percentage of the mileage the tire has delivered by its current selling price.

For vehicles with different front and rear-wheel sizes, the treadwear warranty for the rear tire will be 40,000 miles.

Sizes and Fitment

Cooper produces this tire in several sizes, ranging from 15 inches to 19 inches. It’s compatible with a wide range of sedans, compacts, minivans, crossovers, and sub-compacts, among others.

Pros

• Excellent wet and dry performance
• Reliable traction in shallow snow
• Comfortable, quiet and smooth ride
• 80,000-mile treadwear warranty

Cons

• Poor performance in heavy snow

Should You Buy the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring?

Cooper is renowned for making high-quality but affordable tires. And the Cooper CS5 Grand Touring is no exception. So, if you are looking for budget-friendly all-season grand touring tires, then the CS5 deserves a look. It’s one of the best in the category.