I bought my Toyota new back in May, 1993 from our local dealer in Cleveland and had planned a trip to Ayres Rock (as it was in those days), with an old school mate and friend in August, 1994. As the departure date was approaching, honestly I was not impressed with the wear of the original tyres on my vehicle and decided to change them before leaving home.

My first set of Cooper’s tyres came from Discount Tyre Service at Moorooka. They recommended LT rated Cooper’s STE tyres. My first impression, when driving the car home that day, was that it instantly felt better and handled better on the road. These first set of four Cooper’s tyres were on the car for over 120,000 kilometres without a puncture.

On our first trip, my wife and two young children travelled west to Innamincka, then down the Strzelecki track, up the Oodnadatta track, into Dalhousie Springs on the western side of the Simpson Desert, across thru Mount Dare, Ayres Rock, Kings Canyon, and then onto Alice Springs via Glen Helen Gorge, before going home via Mount Isa, Longreach.

Since then we have completed several trips here and there to various destinations around Australia. The 80 series Landcruiser recently celebrated it’s 21st birthday with our family last week, and with just over 590,000 kms on the clock. My present tyres are a set of LT rated Cooper’s AT3’s. I had these fitted last year, in June or July, 2013 before heading off on a lap of Australia towing a caravan. Gail and I travelled to quite a few remote outback places on these tyres and apart from one ‘tek’ screw causing a slow leak, the tyres performed well, on all road surfaces. Incidently after I removed the tek screw, I managed to plug (repair) the tyre on the side of the road, and it is still holding air pressure today.

Being on my fourth set of LT rated Cooper’s tyres, I have been delighted with their performance. In my opinion, the LT rated AT3’s are proving to be even better than any of my previous sets of Cooper’s. More miles, less wear, no bad chipping from shale and quartz roads out west. They grip well, both braking and cornering. So far we have done about 30,000 kms on this set, I think.

We have travelled on hot and cold bitumen, sand tracks, dirt roads, snow covered, icy roads, rocky tracks, corrugations, creek crossings, gravel, mud etc. The AT3’s handle all these conditions with ease and reliability. Places we have visited on Cooper’s tires include Cape York, Snowy Mountains, Innamincka, Marree, Coober Pedy, Uluru, Kununurra, Wyndham, Denham, Ningaloo Reef, the Nullarbor, Darwin, Adelaide, Hay Plains, Broome, Alice Springs. We have travelled the Tanami Track, Plenty Highway, Strzelecki track, up the Oodnadatta track, Karijini National Park, Millstream National Park and Lawn Hill National Park to name a few.

I have two friends with 80 series cruisers and I have converted both of them to Cooper’s tyres over the years and they will not be fitting anything else. One friend fitted his first set of Coopers before going to Cape York in 2009, after trying Pirelli’s and Dunlop Grand trek’s, and has just completed a lap around Australia on the same set of ATR’s four years later. Speaking recently he confirmed his next set of tyres will be AT3’s by Coopers . He is very impressed with his first set of Coopers. My other friend is now on his third set of Cooper’s and loves them…

One of the most memorable moments on Cooper’s tyres was climbing up Mount Nameless 4wd track in low range. This was a very steep, gravel, rock, constantly winding track but we conquered it with ease.

My vehicle is used mainly on long trips with a bit of city driving. We used to go to the snow annually, and have covered quite a bit of Australia now by road or tracks. I enjoy reading a map and finding a remote or not well used track to investigate and explore. We have used our vehicle for towing our 21ft boat, 16 foot caravan, camper trailer and recently our Microlight aircraft. On our outback trips the car is constantly loaded.