When you’re shopping for a new car, you take a wide range of features and equipment into consideration before making your final decision. But one factor that’s probably not a deal-breaker is what tires the car is wearing. If you think about them at all, you might figure that you’ll live with them until they need replacing and then buy the exact tires you want. As it turns out, a lot of vehicles these days are getting excellent original-equipment tires from esteemed brands like Michelin, Goodyear or Continental. A new J.D. Power survey shows that while owners are pretty satisfied with the results, EV owners are less so.
The J.D. Power U.S. Original Equipment Tire Customer Satisfaction Study assigns a score, on a 1,000-point scale, that ranks owner satisfaction, and in each of four categories the segment average score was roughly around 800 points. (Details in the charts below.) Tires designed for EVs have been making gains in this annual survey; however, the study also found that many buyers were not made aware that these tires, made from low-rolling-resistance compounds, have a tendency to wear faster.
“The widening satisfaction gap between EVs and gas-powered vehicles highlight an opportunity for tire manufacturers and automakers to educate EV owners on the differences in performance,” said Ashley Edgar, a senior director at J.D. Power. “Additionally, because of the inherit conflict of maximizing vehicle range and optimizing tire wear for EVs, tire manufacturers and automakers need to work together to overcome the challenge without completely sacrificing tire performance in other areas, especially as the EV market continues to increase.”
The survey gathered owner opinions in four categories. In order of weighted importance, they are: tire ride; tire wear; tire traction/handling; and tire appearance. (That last one seems like an odd criterion to us; if a tire rides well, is quiet, wears like iron and provides great traction and handling, who cares what it looks like?)
The study also broke down results by vehicle category: passenger car, luxury car, sport/utility, and performance/sport. The study surveyed 31,414 owners of 2022 and 2023 model-year vehicles.
The results? They’re not unexpected: Michelin topped three of the categories — in the case of luxury cars, it has topped this annual survey for 21 years running. In the truck/SUV category, Falken ranked No. 1.
These rankings do not reference particular tire models, just brands. Though in any particular category, you can make an educated guess by cross-referencing with ratings and recommendations at Consumer Reports, Tire Rack and elsewhere.
J.D. Power new-car tire rankings:
Truck/utility
- Falken, 818 points
- BFGoodrich, 812
- Hankook, 804
- Michelin, 802
- Goodyear, 789
- Bridgestone, 783
- Pirelli, 783
- Segment average, 781
- Continental, 765
- Firestone, 725
Performance/Sport
- Michelin, 833
- Segment average, 809
- Pirelli, 798
- Goodyear, 788
Passenger car
- Michelin, 823
- Goodyear, 811
- Kumho, 799
- Bridgestone, 797
- Segment average, 797
- Yokohama, 793
- Falken, 787
- Pirelli, 787
- Continental, 786
- Firestone, 786
- Hankook, 785
- Nexen, 783
- Toyo, 769
Luxury
- Michelin, 834
- Goodyear, 812
- Continental, 811
- Segment average, 810
- Bridgestone, 803
- Pirelli, 793