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Where are Cooper tires made?

where are cooper tires made
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Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is an American-based company with operations and plants throughout the world.

Some Cooper tires are made in the United States, as the company has 3 plants across Mississippi and Ohio. Since Cooper Tire has a global presence, it also makes tires throughout the rest of the world.

About Cooper Tire

Cooper Tire is an American company with its global headquarters located in Findlay, Ohio. Cooper Tire designs and manufactures tires for passenger cars, trucks, motorcycles, and race cars.

Two brother-in-laws started Cooper Tire over 100 years ago in Arkon, Ohio. The company was known as M and M Manufacturing Company. Through some changes in management, a merger and acquisition, and then a name change, the Company officially became known as Cooper Tire & Rubber Company in 1946. In 1960, Cooper Tire became a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Cooper Tire is the 10th largest tire manufacturer in the world, and one of only two American-owned tire companies.

In June 2021, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company acquired Cooper Tire & Rubber Company for $2.8 billion.

Where are Cooper tires made?

Cooper tires are made in the United States and countries around the world.

Cooper tires currently has four U.S. facilities. They are located in:

  1. Texarkana, Arkansas – used for passenger/light truck tires.
  2. Clarksdale, Mississippi – used for mixed operations.
  3. Tupelo, Mississippi – used for passenger tires.
  4. Findlay, Ohio – used for light truck tires.

Aside from the four U.S. facilities listed above, Cooper Tire has facilities in Mexico, Europe, and Asia. You can determine the plant a tire was made in by looking at the codes found on the tire. More on this below.

Are Cooper tires good?

With any product, you can expect that some customers will love it, some will like it, some will be neutral, and others will dislike it.

You should not exclude Cooper tires from this analysis. A search across the internet shows a mix of reviews for Cooper tires. As mentioned above, Cooper Tires makes several types of tires usable in different types of vehicles.

Here we’ll provide a high-level overview of some of the reviews regarding Cooper tires:

Here are what some of TireBuyer’s customers are saying in their review: 

"I own a 2018 Honda civic and I absolutely love the car, it's a base model and simply all you need for transportation. After a time the ride became a little rough to the point of consideration of trade in. Even though the tires still had good tread wear I had them replaced with Cooper Evolution Touring tires, it was like driving it the first time except with more feeling. The car had so much more life in the handling, to the point that I wanted to write Honda and say require these for all of your cars. The tires will be replaced with the same Copper s for as long as I own this car. Thank You Cooper Tires."  5 stars from Mick Wu, TireBuyer.com Review - Cooper Evolution Tour Tire.

"I bought these tires 2 years ago and after 22,000 miles they already need to be replaced. Wear is very even on all 4 tires. Just didn't last." 2 stars from Trooooooy, TireBuyer.com Review - Cooper Evolution Tour tire

"It's great to be able to buy a tire from an American company, not just an American name! I had four CS5 installed on my CR-V and left the shop in an absolute downpour and was surprised and exhilarated at the traction the tires afforded. The tires gripped the road in curves better than I've any other tire I've owned at all speeds and is very quiet on dry pavement. I'm completely satisfied with my decision to try the Cooper CS5!" 5 stars from airtow1, TireBuyer.com Review - Cooper CS5 Grand Touring tire

"They are much quieter than old Goodyears, traction in snow and ice could be better. # SATISFACTION with tire buyer is outstanding, as i had trouble with getting my rebate from mfg. called tire buyer the got it straightened out fast and receive my rebate. This is the second time i used tire buyer and would use them again. The other problem i had was with installer as they refused to use the price quoted again i contacted tire buyer and they straightened this out and i had no further problems. Mileage has improved about 1mpg so far." 4 stars from tjhotrod, TireBuyer.com Review - Cooper Evolution H/T tire

"I put these on my 2014 gmc seirra crew cab.I have ony had them a few weeks but I can say they run very Quiet and handle rain and large puddles very well." 4 stars from Joe Bike, TireBuyer.com Review - Cooper Evolution H/T tire

Video Reviews of Cooper Tires

If you’re in the market for new Cooper tires, here are some video reviews of Cooper Tires for you to check out:

Source: YouTube.com, Custom Offsets Channel
Source: YouTube.com, Cooper Tire Channel

Information about Cooper tires

What are a list of Cooper tire models?

Cooper Tire makes a variety of tires models. Additionally, not all tire retailers may carry all of the models. The list below is not an exhaustive Cooper tire list, but just some of the models:

  • Cooper all season tire models:
    • Zeon RS3-G1
    • CS5 Grant Touring
    • Evolution Tour
    • Cobra Radial G/T
    • Discoverer H/T Plus
    • Discoverer EnduraMax
    • Discoverer SRX
    • Endeavor Plus
    • Evolution H/T
  • Cooper winter tire models:
    • Discoverer True North
    • Evolution Winter
  • Cooper all-terrain models:
    • Discoverer AT3
    • Discoverer Rugged Trek
    • Discoverer STT PRO
    • Evolution M/T

How much does Cooper tires cost?

The cost of a Cooper Tire brand tire will depend on a variety of factors, including the retailer, specific brand you select and size of the tire.

For instance, PriorityTire.com the price of all-season passenger vehicle tires ranges between $93 MSRP (per tire) and $321 MSRP (per tire). This excludes any discounts they are currently having.

Click here to check out PriorityTire.com’s current weekly deals.

List of tire brands made in the United States

Aside from Cooper Tire there are other tire manufacturers that also manufacture some of their tires here in the United States.

As mentioned earlier, Cooper Tire is one of two American-based tire companies. The other is Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.

Goodyear Tire acquired Cooper Tire in June 2021, so technically there is now only one American-based tire manufacturer.

If you wish to only purchase products made in the United States, then see below. Some of the other brands who have manufacturing plants in the United States are:

  • Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
  • Yokohama Rubber Company (Japan-based tire company)
  • Continental AG (German-based company)
  • Pirelli & C. S.pA. (Italy-based tire company)
  • Michelin (French-based tire company)
  • Bridgestone Corporation (Japanese-based tire company)

How do you identify Cooper tires made in the United States?

You can determine where a Cooper tire was made by looking at the codes found on the tire itself. This method applies to any U.S. based tire.

Let’s look at an example using the picture and codes shown below. But first, here is a legend of what each letter means:

  • A = Department of Transportation
  • B = Plant Code
  • C = Size Code
  • D = Manufacturing Code
  • E = Week and year of manufacturer (First two digits is the week number, followed by the year)

To determine where a tire was made, we only need to focus on B.

Tire picture codes to determine where a tire is made

In this example:

A = tells us that a DOT code follows.

B = A3 (General Tire & Rubber Co. located in Mount Vernon, Illinois)

C = HH

D = WC4F

E = 4417 which means week 44 in the year 2017.

The three Cooper Tire plant codes in the United States are:

  1. U9 or 1U9 – this is the Tulepo, Mississippi plant
  2. UP or 1UP – this is the Findlay, Ohio plant
  3. UT or 1UT – this is the Texarkana, Arkansas plant

You can view a full list of tire plant codes here.

Is there a difference between tires made in the United States versus tires made outside of the United States?

With the advancement of technology across the world, there is likely little differences between tires made in the United States versus a foreign country.

A brand such as Cooper Tire will also likely have quality control measures in place. This is to make sure their customers in a country receive the same quality of tire regardless of where it was made.

Regardless of where a tire is made, the tire must still meet the laws of the place where they will be used. A tire company that makes tires in the United States intended for use within the United States, would need to comply with U.S. manufacturing laws and U.S. laws regarding tires and safety.

A tire company that decides to make tires in a foreign country and then import them for use within the United States, will still need to comply with U.S. laws regarding tires and safety. In other words, foreign-manufacturerd tires don’t get a break or shortcut to avoid complying with U.S. laws.

(By the way, the information in this section isn’t legal advice, but an opinion and hopefully based on what makes sense!)

Conclusion

In summary, Cooper Tire is an American-based company with global operations. Cooper Tire makes tires not only in the United States but throughout the world. Not a logistical professional, but this likely helps them save money to manufacturer tires in the market where they will be used.


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