Cooper GLS Touring Review: This touring tire is specified for all season use. The contact patch and siping pattern of its tread are specially optimized for enhanced traction on both dry and wet road. Due to its improved dry traction, it offers a comfortable experience when you go out for long drives.
Besides good traction, this tire has a good longevity score as well. Its strengthened rubber compound and robust internal structure leads to enhanced resistance against tread wear and extreme temperature damages.
Examine the treads on these tires closely. They hold the key to knowing which to choose. In fact if you visit my "tread design" page, picking the right tire would never bother you.
Thus, you can enjoy rides without concern because its replacement warranty remains valid for thousands of miles.
Cooper GLS Touring characterizes a broad contact patch and shows excellent performance on dry roads, providing good grip and handling. Its wet grip is good but wet handling and snow traction is of moderate level. However, its comfort level is high, the noise profile is quiet and the treadwear warranty extends over a long mileage.
Following is the specs table for both tires that we compared. As you can see they were compared in same sizes.
| Cooper GLS Touring | |
| Tire type | All season |
| Run flat | No |
| Usage | On-road touring |
| Tested size | 185/65 R15 |
| Tread depth | 09/ 32-inch |
| Section width | 7.3 inches |
| Maximum load capacity | 1235 Ibs |
| Load Index | 88 |
| Rim diameter | 20 inches |
| speed rating | T |
| Ply rating | SL |
| Maximum inflation pressure | 36 psi |
| Maximum speed limit | Up to 118 mph |
Table of Contents
What can we learn from the Structure of it’s design?
Cooper GLS specifies a computer optimized tread having three wide ribs in the center of large shoulders.
These ribs are semi continuous as their lateral voids are not complete but rather marked as slanted traction notches on their edges.
However, the four circumferential grooves of the tire are uninterrupted.
Due to wide ribs, its contact patch is large and its shoulders are bulky as well.
Large shoulder blocks are linked with each other by smaller, overlapping blocks.
Both central and shoulder blocks have 3D micro-gauge sipes which also optimize contact patch besides enhancing hydroplaning.
Tires Traction on the road:
Cooper GLS shows good dry grip due to its broad contact patch.
Its semi-continuous ribs offer a good rubber-to-road contact. Hence, it can grip the paved surface firmly.
Due to this feature, its grip on a wet and icy road is also satisfactory.
However, as it offers moderate slip resistance, the wet grip is also limited because the water on the road may decrease the stability of the tire due to narrower grooves.
On snowy paths, it shows a dependable but not very efficient grip.
Lateral notches on ribs and 3D sipes result in good snow biting but evacuation capacity is minimized due to low void ratio and minor tread depth.
Lack of winter-optimized tread composition is also a reason for limited ice and snow grip.
What is the On-road handling of the tire like?
The tire offers a responsive steering experience on dry tracks owing to its bulky shoulders.
Its large shoulder blocks offer consistent contact with the road when the vehicle is turning along a corner, thus, handling efficiency is maximized.
On a wet road, it performs moderately because the overlapping blocks limit the aquaplaning resistivity of shoulders.
Likewise, on snow, the shoulders have a less biting ability due to narrow lateral grooves and less evacuation due to moderate tread depth and lack of connection between circumferential and lateral grooves.
Tire’s resistance to Hydroplaning
GLS has a good ability to deal with water standing on the road, thus, offering reliable traction after rainfall.
Circumferential grooves and 3D micro-gauge sipes do a good job of removing the water layer between the tread and road.
However, its resistance to hydroplaning while taking turns is lowered by the overlapping feature of its shoulder blocks as it hinders the connection of shoulder channels with longitudinal grooves.
Is the tire fuel efficient?
As the tread of GLS touring characterizes a large contact patch, it faces a high rolling resistance.
Because when more surface area of tread comes in contact with the road, more force is required to roll it over.
Resultantly, the frictional wear and fuel consumption are likely to be high.
Driving comfort with this tire:
This Cooper has a good score for comfort on road.
As its void ratio is low, lateral grooves are narrow and blind-ended and the connection between shoulder grooves and longitudinal grooves is limited, its tread specifies only a minimal vacuum for free circulation and resonation of sound waves.
Overlapping small shoulder blocks especially hinder the noise production.
As a result, GLS makes a little noise and ranks among the quiet tires out there.
When it comes to driving comfort, Cooper Touring tire shows a varied performance on dry and wet tracks.
On a dry road, driving with these tires is comfortable as high traction due to increased contact patch results in maximized stability.
How last is this tire gonna last?
Cooper tires have used flexible and high strength polyester cords in the construction of GLS tread.
That is why it offers good chip and wear resistance.
Moreover, its temperature endurance is improved.
As a result, it has a high UTQG rating for treadwear.
Owing to the benefit of these features, it comes with a treadwear mileage warranty lasting up to 65,000 miles and an assurance of even wear up to 2/32-inch.
| Cooper GLS Touring | |
| Durability | Moderate- High |
| Treadwear mileage warranty | 65,000 miles |
| Uniformity warranty | First 2/32’’ |
| UTQG treadwear rating | 440 |
| UTQG temperature grade | A |
| UTQG traction grade | A |
Here’s what we learned:
Cooper GLS Touring
- Has a large contact patch and bulky shoulders, resulting in enhanced dry grip and handling.
- Wet grip is reliable but steering efficiency on a wet road is limited.
- Hydroplaning resistance is optimized but not very high.
- Ice and snow performance is reliable but not the best.
- Off-road abilities are minimized.
- Durability and wear resistance is good. Hence, it carries a long warranty.
- Its noise production is minimized due to computer optimized tread pattern.
