Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 excels in the ultra high-performance all-season tire category, especially noted for its outstanding traction. But how does it fare in other key aspects? Let’s dive in and discover.
Table of Contents
Main Highlights
Overall, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 tire excels in:
- Directional grip, providing reliable straight-line traction.
- Lateral traction, offering effective cornering.
- Ride comfort, with a well-balanced design that reduces noise and absorbs road irregularities.
- Winter performance on icy surfaces.
Though the tire needs improvements in:
- Steering response, as it tends to lean towards slight understeering.
- Wet performance, particularly in curved situations.
- Winter performance on snowy terrains.
- Fuel efficiency, as its robust construction and heavier weight increase rolling resistance.
Tread Features
Offering an asymmetric tread pattern, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 is characterized by its five separate ribs or block columns.
Here, the middle most rib is the narrowest, and is characterized by linear and curving sipes, and various biters, facing outwards, laterally.
Adjacent to this, the ribs on each side exhibit significant differences.
One side displays “S-shaped” blocks with linear sipes and notches, while the other side is characterized by “C-shaped” blocks with notches facing outwards towards the shoulders.
Also both of these ribs have proper lateral voids, that link to the outer circumferential grooves.
Moving towards shoulders, the lugs again vary on each side.
One side features larger lugs with a minimalist design, whereas the other side is denser, incorporating linear sipes and interlocking lateral voids for enhanced traction and stability.
Side Note: Cooper Zeon is included in my list of top UHP All-Season Tires. See the list here: https://tiredriver.com/best-ultra-high-performance-all-season-tires/
Info on Sizes
The tire comes in 16 to 20 inches rims, with following specs.
- Speed ratings: W and Y.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth: 10.5/32″ (with 2 sizes also seen with 10/32″ only).
- Weight: 22 to 35 lbs, (with 205/55R16 being the lightest, and 275/40R20, the heaviest).
- UTQG: 500 AA A.
- Treadwear warranty: 45k miles.
The internal construction of the tire consists of a two-ply polyester casing, (with high-stiffness bead fillers), twin steel belts and a single ply spirally wound, nylon wrap.
Find all the tires compared with Cooper Zeon RS3 G1.
Overall Dry Performance
Evaluating dry performance in tires involves examining several crucial factors, including traction, stability, and responsiveness.
Let’s get into each of these elements in detail.
Directional Grip
The overall traction of a tire relies heavily on a blend of directional and lateral grip, with each type playing a pivotal role in the tire’s overall performance.
Focusing on directional grip first, it refers to the tire’s capability in straight-line traction, mainly judged by its stopping power, as measured by braking distances.
And in this aspect, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 excels, primarily due to its continuous central rib. This design ensures consistent and robust rubber-to-road contact, (which is of course very fundamental for dependable traction).
And sure, the lateral voids on the adjacent (to the middle) ribs reduce the overall contact patch, they still do more good, then harm.
I mean, these voids actually act as in-groove notches, enhancing grip and, consequently, the tire’s overall performance. Further augmenting this are the tire’s S and C-shaped blocks, which feature various slanted notches for improved grip.
And yes, with reinforced foundations under all ribs, you also get the needed stability here too, or should I say, on-center feel, (which has to do with straightening up the vehicle/tires, post corner).
Lateral Traction
This traction is about the tire’s cornering grip, essentially, how effectively the tire maintains control and stability while cornering. And this is measured by lateral g-force evaluations.
Now, in the realm of this lateral grip, the design of the tire’s shoulders is very critical, as they engage the most with the road during turns.
That’s why here, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 again stands out, thanks to its compact shoulder design with minimal tread features, ensuring ample contact with the ground is made.
To give you an idea about the tire’s performance here, its dry braking and lateral grip is very similar to Goodyear Eagle Exhilarate (which is one of the most gripping tire in the UHP all-season category).
Review Goodyear’s tire here: https://tiredriver.com/goodyear-eagle-exhilarate-review/
Overall Handling
Now, lateral grip indeed plays a significant role in determining a tire’s overall handling scores, but the ultimate factor in this evaluation is the tire’s steering characteristics.
In this respect, during testing, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 showcases satisfactory steering accuracy, responding consistently to driver inputs. Though the tire has a potential need for improvement if you ask me, as it tends to lean towards slight understeering, according to my subjective analysis.
This somewhat less precise steering response of the Zeon RS3 can be linked to its heavier internal construction, especially when compared to others in its category.
This additional weight, basically results in increased flexing of the tread and sidewalls during cornering, as they bear more pressure against the road.
Such flexibility influences the tire’s accuracy, particularly impacting its performance in maintaining on-center stability and mid-cornering precision.
That’s why its overall dry handling is very similar to Fuzion UHP Sport AS (review), which is actually a budget pick.
Overall Ride Comfort
Ride comfort is two folds, where tire’s noise and bumps dampening abilities are tested. Let’s start with noise.
Noise Comfort
The Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 generates road noise that, while not overly loud, is characterized by a distinct, higher-pitched sound that varies with different road surfaces.
This noise primarily stems from air turbulence within the tire’s tread. Though as most of this air enters through shoulder voids, the Cooper Zeon offering such packed up shoulders, try to kill this noise at the source.
Moreover, the tire offers superb pitch technology, which uses unique rib designs to create varying sound frequencies, which are intended to counteract each other.
This interaction helps in reducing the overall noise level, mitigating some of the sound issues associated with the tire’s design.
Road Smoothness
The Zeon RS3 stands out as one of the top tires for ride comfort.
It achieves this with a design that utilizes a relatively softer rubber compared to its peers. And sure, this softer composition might not be ideal for extending tread life, it is extremely beneficial for enhancing overall ride comfort.
But that’s the thing the tire is soft enough to effectively absorbs road irregularities, but its not overly soft, thanks to the reinforced foundations under all the lugs, which rest on a slightly stiffer rubber.
Meaning you get comfort, without compromising tread longevity.
But this doesn’t go for low-profiled tires, you can read all about it here: https://tiredriver.com/tire-rotation-vs-wheel-alignment/
Or in other words, you get a design which ensures a well-maintained balance between softness and stability.
Side Note: Excessively soft tires typically lead to compromised motion control, resulting in a less responsive sensation, but the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 avoids this pitfall, allowing for a great balance, ensuring both comfort and stability in its performance.
Wet Performance
In assessing a tire’s capabilities in wet conditions, I prioritize three critical factors: traction, steering effectiveness, and resistance to hydroplaning.
Let me discuss all one by one.
Wet Traction
The effectiveness of tire traction on wet roads is significantly influenced by both the design of the tread and the quality and quantity of sipes, which are small slits in the tread crucial for displacing water.
These sipes absorb water from beneath the tread blocks, helping to prevent tire slippage. However, the Cooper Zeon disappointingly underperforms in this area.
One key shortcoming of the Zeon RS3 G1 is its lack of an all-weather rubber compound, typically comprising a silica blend and advanced tread technologies. This combination is vital for enhancing tread flexibility, which in turn is essential for the optimal functioning of sipes.
Simply put, this flexibility allows the sipes to effectively draw in moisture, clearing up the road’s surface a little for biters/rubber to grip on.
Moreover, the tire although features multi-directional sipes, running in all directions, their linear structures is less effective.
This particularly goes for shoulders, where the linear sipes tend to get stiffen up, further losing flexibility, especially with extreme cornering.
So overall, you get a very lacking wet performance with this tire, relatively. I mean in my comparative analysis (of UHPAS tires), the Zeon took 10 feet longer in dry braking distances and showed almost 3 seconds slower wet handling lap times, on average, compared to the Michelin PSAS 4.
Review PSAS4 in details: https://tiredriver.com/michelin-pilot-sport-all-season-4-review/
Aquaplaning Resistance
Hydroplaning is a dangerous phenomenon where a tire loses contact with the road, gliding over a layer of water and losing all traction, essentially “floating” on the water surface.
To combat this, tires are designed with grooves in the tread, to channel water away efficiently.
So overall effectiveness of the grooves define the resistance to hydroplaning, or float speeds, which tell how fast a tire can roll over (on a few mm deep) water without floating.
Now, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 addresses this issue effectively with its wide circumferential grooves, which excel at expelling water. However, there is room for improvement, as while it handles straight-line hydroplaning adequately, it’s less effective in situations involving curves.
I mean, it doesn’t evacuate water out of its tread quickly enough, while cornering. And this is mainly because of the Zeon’s closed up shoulder voids, restricting water flow.
This limitation not only impacts its performance in curved hydroplaning tests but also contributes to understeering, because less water being expelled through the grooves, leaves more water for the sipes to clear.
Winter Traction
When assessing the winter performance, there are 3 main things I consider (while testing).
- Tire’s acceleration.
- Overall handling and steering response.
- Traction of various winter conditions, including slushy, icy and snowy surfaces.
Now, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 shows mixed results, in by testing and subjective evaluations, where the tire performs exceptionally well on icy surfaces, but falls short on snow.
I mean compared to the Nokian WRG4 (review), which tops the best UHP tires for winter performance, the Zeon lacks by over 26 feet in snow braking and by only 5 feet on ice.
So why is that happening?
Well the Cooper Zeon features numerous in-groove notches/biters, primarily formed by S and C-shaped lugs in the middle of its tread. And these notches, along with multiple siping slits, running in different directions, are able to provide better traction on slick, icy roads.
Moreover, thanks to the tire’s thermally adaptive rubber compound, which is highly needed for icy terrains, the tire keeps its biters flexible and effective enough to generate good enough friction, and adherence.
Though these biters are still ineffective on snowy terrains, as they can’t provide snow scooping abilities, along with effective snow to snow contact.
(This contact is significant, because snow adheres better to itself than to rubber).
Moreover, with lack of scooping abilities, the tire can’t provide adequate acceleration as well. That’s why it makes sense why the tire is not branded with 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake certification (which is given to tires which are at least 10% better compared to standard touring tires).
A good related read: https://tiredriver.com/improve-snow-performance-from-all-season-tires/
Fuel Efficiency
While the Cooper’s tire here is praised for its solid and stable tread, its fuel efficiency is compromised, largely due to its excessive weight, (which stems from it’s robust internal construction).
As a result of this increased weight, the tire exerts more pressure on its tread, leading to greater friction against the road surface.
And this friction necessitates the lugs of the Cooper Zeon to bend (more) under pressure, a process that wastes the fuel energy in the form of heat (for the most part), lowering tire’s overall fuel economy.
To Conclude
In summary, the Cooper Zeon RS3 G1 displays an appreciable performance in dry conditions, excelling in directional grip and lateral traction, thanks to its continuous central rib and compact shoulder design.
Wet performance on the other side, is less impressive, with deficiencies in traction and resistance to hydroplaning, which results in understeering.
Winter traction is a mixed bag of results, where the tire excels on ice, but lacks on snow.
Other than this, the tire offers excellent ride comfort, balancing noise reduction and impact absorption effectively, but its robust construction negatively impacts its fuel efficiency.
