The Most Satisfying Tire Brands

“Our extensive testing reveals how tires compare in every category based on several key measurements,” says Gene Petersen, tire program manager at Consumer Reports. “But how happy customers are when they buy the tires provides an interesting and useful complement to findings from our track.”

With our latest survey, we focused on satisfaction by tire type, whereas in the past we looked at satisfaction across all types. This provides more targeted guidance that can help shoppers.
Below we present the brand satisfaction ratings among all-season, all-terrain, and summer tires.

All-season tires are by far the most popular. In this survey, 84 percent of CR members who purchased tires bought all-seasons. Nine of the 36 all-season brands we rated claimed our highest satisfaction rating, and they come from just a handful of corporations: Centennial, Continental, General, Michelin, Nokian, and Vredestein.

Almost every brand in the all-terrain tire category received our top satisfaction mark. Uniroyal was the only outlier, but even its satisfaction was rated as above average.

Satisfaction runs high in the winter/snow category, with three-quarters of the 28 tire brands getting high marks. (We’ll cover this in more detail in a future article.) The others were above average, excluding Uniroyal, which had an average score.

The summer tires category had more differentiation, with 10 of 25 brands earning the highest rating for satisfaction. The four lowest-rated brands were judged to be average.

Some of these satisfaction ratings are in line with our test findings. It’s no surprise: Well-performing products tend to satisfy. However, satisfaction may be influenced by perceived value, whether the product fulfills a marketing promise, and brand characteristics such as grip in different conditions, noise, and tread life. These are all elements that aren’t part of our tests.

The rating for some specialty brands can be better understood when looking beyond their satisfaction scores. Tires that focus on a particular niche, such as off-roading or value, may be seen as more satisfying for fulfilling their advertised mission.

The tire brands we list below are presented in order of how they rate for overall owner satisfaction, starting with the top-rated brands. Detailed test results can be found on the tire model pages.