I am aware that there were problems with the early run of the Phoenix and perhaps these issues have been addressed. Mike Salemi has had these on his car for a while now and has had nothing but praises.
A former Pagoda SL Group member, and former 113 owner vehemently disagreed with me on the Cokers (and pretty much on everything else I ever had to say as well). He claimed "many known instances" of tread separation on the Cokers, and basically dismissed them as expensive junk and me as some patsy for Coker. Well, tread separation isn't limited to these tires, and I've had it on Michelin X, XZX; I've had premature wear (leading to tires that shimmied like nobody's business) on Goodrich Comp T/A's, and plenty of other tire issues as well since I started driving in 1973. So far, none on the Cokers I have. That does NOT make them perfect, only points to their infrequent use on a collectible car and my good luck. Those of you who read my article that appeared in The Star on tire balance
http://www.mbca.org/pages/star/articles/TheStar_0508.pdf will note that the Cokers presented quite a range of correction. I have not taken other popular tires on the same machine, such as these Vredesteins, but the rep for Hunter who did the project with me that resulted in the article wasn't at all surprised by these differences in each tire; nor was he surprised that one of them had to be sent back as "not correctible" in the balance process. Bottom line? I think the Cokers are much like any other tire in terms of quality of manufacture and consistency.
The Cokers may be expensive, but they have always been so. I think that has a lot to do with peoples resistance to them; they generally were about twice the price of anything else, and goodness knows this group collectively doesn't like anything expensive (but perhaps the resale value of their cars!
). But if you think the Coker's are expensive, you can always buy new shoes for your 113 in the form of the reissued classic
Michelin MXV-P in the correct 185-14 size. They are only
$324.00 each. You can get them at Longstone Tyre in the UK or Performance Plus in the US. However I think that a search for "correct" sized good tires for $65 each or whatever anyone thinks is reasonable is going to be about as fruitful as "Lilly's" search for a like new grill star for $200...
I don't like anything expensive either, but the Cokers have gone up in price about 40% in price since I bought them. Grill stars have more than doubled. Nothing is getting cheaper I'm afraid. Buy it now, and in the coming years look back on how smart you were to buy it when you did!
I think Tom Sargeant had one of the early runs of the Cokers but that was a very long time ago; I remember talking with him about it at PUB in
2005. That first run didn't have the rub strip either.
Most people here have nice things to say about the tires they chose. My first tire didn't work well, it was a Pirelli. The Cokers have been fine. Good balance helps, so does driving other cars with other tires to get a feel for the differences. One of the highlights of PUB is the ability to do this.
