If you’re confused by what is considered to be a “light truck” by the government these days, imagine how tire makers must feel.

After all, everything from an Audi Allroad to a Chevrolet Suburban is considered an SUV of some kind by the EPA, which are light trucks according to federal fuel economy standards. Yet even actual pickup trucks rarely see a muddy path in the hands of most buyers these days.

Loaded up with people and seen on paved roads, today’s light trucks are mostly car-based and have to handle highway speeds better than they ever did before. So how are tire makers adapting?

Earlier this summer, Cooper Tire sent me to their testing grounds outside San Antonio, Texas, where they showed off the Discoverer SRX, a new tire designed primarily for SUVs. SRX isn’t a Cadillac to Cooper, as it actually stands for “Sport Radial, Crossovers” in their tire speak.

Cooper’s tire is designed for everything from a Honda CR-V to a Ford F-150, says Bruce Sanborn, product manager for Cooper Tire.

“It’s a diverse market with lots of uses,” Sanborn said. “But on the rack, all tires look the same.”

Cooper sent a bunch of journalists out to a wet course with vehicle test manager Nate Kear, who showed us the difference between their tire and a major rival’s on the two Chevy Tahoes on hand.

A Tahoe isn’t the first vehicle you’d want to drive faster than 50 mph on a wet course with the traction control deactivated, but there were noticeable differences in the way the vehicle felt through the corners and how much it wanted to slide into the cones.

On a dry track, the Tahoe’s body roll compounded the issue of the rival tires that made it felt like the SUV was riding on four marshmallows. Cooper engineers created a better mix of materials to allow for some compliance in the pursuit of comfort, while increasing the tire’s performance at higher speeds and on slick pavement.

The class of tire that the Discover SRX is in has increased in size 150 percent in the last 8 years, according to Cooper, which is no doubt a reflection of how popular vehicles such as CR-Vs and Tahoes became last decade as family transportation. The SRX will probably become increasingly popular now that crossovers of all sizes have exploded in sales in this decade.

But in discussions with various people from Cooper Tire, the new challenge is to design tires that do a better job of managing on-road handling and comfort while not totally abandoning some off-road ability. And that’s true even for vehicles such as a BMW X1 or Mercedes-Benz GLA, which fundamentally are jacked-up cars with hardly any off-road pretense in the first place. Sanborn says it’s definitely a challenge, but not impossible.

And Cooper offers a number of off-road tires for those who have something that’s actually based on a truck and want to use it to charge through the mud.

Light truck purists need not worry.

 Photos: Zac Estrada/Carscoops

Photos