This tire brand scores the worst in terms of owner satisfaction in the rankings of Consumer Reports – Jalopnik

Tires are the only part of the car that should actually make contact with the road and are crucial to keeping your car safe and performing well. But like everything else in the automotive world, they are not all built equal. That fact becomes clear when we see how certain manufacturers have recently failed to meet standards Consumer Reports (CR) survey on satisfaction with tire brands.

The study looked at all-season, all-terrain, winter/snow and summer tires. Of the brands surveyed, Sumitomo finished with the lowest overall satisfaction level, finishing at the bottom of the table in two of the four tire categories (all-terrain and summer). It also languished as second-to-last in the all-season and winter/snow categories.

Sumitomo tires performed worse than others in key consumer priority areas such as drivability, wet grip and longevity. Their tires were found to wear out faster on average, compromising a car’s ability to effectively grip the road. All four Sumitomo tires rated by CR – namely the HTR A/S P03 (all-season tire), HTR Z5 (summer tire), Ice Edge (winter) and Encounter HT2 (all-season SUV tires) – scored poorly across the board and received some of the lowest possible ratings for owner satisfaction.

Sumitomo was not the only poorly rated tire brand in CR’s report. Many other brands also performed poorly in terms of customer satisfaction. Like Sumitomo, Dunlop received poor ratings in each of the four owner-rated categories, which is bad news for the parent company. Sumitomo Rubber Industries now owns both Sumitomo Tires and Dunlop after acquiring the latter from Goodyear in 2025 in a $701 million cash transaction. GT Radial is now the third and last tire brand to achieve the worst possible score in all four categories.

Michelin-owned Uniroyal made two appearances in the all-season and winter snow tire categories, but finished bottom of the rankings both times. Other worst offenders with two appearances on the lists include Ironman, Mastercraft and Sailun, with all three ranking at the bottom of the all-season and terrain class. Another Michelin-backed brand, BFGoodrich, finished near the bottom of the winter snow tire chart, and Arizonan earned only a poor score in the all-season category. Kelly and Hercules, in turn, received poor ratings in at least three categories, with both brands among the worst performers in the all-season, all-terrain and winter-snow categories.

But there were also countless winners. In the four-season segment, Michelin and Vredestein came out on top. Michelin was also among the top-performing off-road tire manufacturers, along with BFGoodrich, Continental, Falken and Nokian. At the very top of the winter snow table, Bridgestone, Michelin, Nokian and Vredestein rank as the most satisfying brands to own, and these last three brands also dominate the summer tire category.