2012 OE Tire Satisfaction Survey

[SubLGT]

This news is a little stale, first being released in March 2012. It is a JD Power survey asking car owners (in 4 vehicle segments) to rate their original equipment tires. Michelin was rated #1 in three of the vehicle segments. Continental was rated last in two vehicle segments, and below average in the other two vehicle segments. For more details and charts, see the link:

http://autos.jdpower.com/content/press-r...ice-loyalty.htm

 

[SubLGT]

And here is a related survey (originally posted here a while ago) about customer satisfaction with replacement tires:

http://www.autopacific.com/news-app/stor...u.no/sec./home.

 

[barlowc]

Interesting that Continental is ranked so low. The OE ContiProContact 540 A A 215/60R16 on my Nissan have been nothing but great tires. After 55K miles they still have 6/32 of tread, will last me another winter, and I anticipate lasting until 70K. Meanwhile the traction, handling, and noise variables all remain very good, though I'm noticing road noise slowly increasing, but that's to be expected at that mileage and remaining tread depth.

 

[MarkStock]

As many here would do, I've used tirerack to do my research when replacing tires. I've done this for friends as well.

I was quite surprised to find that Lexus typically put on original tires which ranked real low on tirerack. I recall them being Continental.

I think it's a case of going with whoever gives you big discounts. Home builders do the same thing. I've moved into 2 new / nearly new homes and on both occasions the appliances were very poor quality in performance and poor reliability, even if they were big names, full stainless steel. The manufacturers clearly offer up their biggest discounts on their worst products and the buyers don't care so long as it's got the brand name and it's shiny.

 

[SubLGT]

Originally Posted By: barlowc
Interesting that Continental is ranked so low. The OE ContiProContact 540 A A 215/60R16 on my Nissan have been nothing but great tires. ............


In the TireRack customer survey, that Conti ranks 13th overall for "Grand Touring AS" tires, the Kumho LX Platinum ranks 6th, and the Michelin Primacy MXV4 ranks 1st.

 

[skyship]

Do yourselves a favour and read the German reports:

http://www.adac.de/infotestrat/tests/reifen/default.aspx?
ComponentId=29895&SourcePageId=0

The only thing that matters is stopping performance, not noise and wear rates, which is how most dipsticks rate their tires.
Pay real attention to wet braking distances, as Michellin do make good tyres, but on average for all the different sizes and types I would rank them based on RDAC braking tests as Continental, Nokian, Dunlop, Michellin, Pirrelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone, but there is not much to choose between the first 4 and every tyre and type will have a different result for the safest tyre.
Never use go green eco tyres as they might wear well, BUT are real bad in the wet and the non major brands can be a real horror story.

 

[MarkStock]

Yes I always base my purchasing on wet tire performance.

What I found on OEM tires is that the car manufacturer tests tires then ok's those tires. 5 years go by and tire technology changes. But that tire stays on the manufacturer's OEM list.

Then 3 years go by and the tires need changing. When you look on tirerack, you find that this now 8 year old tire is in the bottom half of tires in terms of rating.

 

[skyship]

I'm a Brit but I only trust comments from German tyre sources, as the rest are either biased or use twisted statistics, like ignoring better makes or sizes in the test.
The car manufacturers in Germany do allow their dealers to agree different tyre replacement contracts and they nearly always choose the safest tyres. For example for summer tyres Volvo dealers offer Contis or Pirrellis, but BMW offer Contis or Nokian. They recommend different tyres in winter and Michellin Alpins are included, as are Dunlop Sports for Mercedes.
I used to hate being followed to work by some muppet in winter with an old VW van that I knew had no ABS brakes and a set of Goodgod special winter tyres with only 2 mm of tread.
Luckily he crashed into the back of nice BMW that could probably stop on ice in half the distance. 10K bill for the BMW, but luckily the VW was written off.

 

[Smoky14]

Originally Posted By: skyship
Do yourselves a favour and read the German reports:

http://www.adac.de/infotestrat/tests/reifen/default.aspx?
ComponentId=29895&SourcePageId=0

The only thing that matters is stopping performance, not noise and wear rates, which is how most dipsticks rate their tires.
Pay real attention to wet braking distances, as Michellin do make good tyres, but on average for all the different sizes and types I would rank them based on RDAC braking tests as Continental, Nokian, Dunlop, Michellin, Pirrelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone, but there is not much to choose between the first 4 and every tyre and type will have a different result for the safest tyre.
Never use go green eco tyres as they might wear well, BUT are real bad in the wet and the non major brands can be a real horror story.

I must disagree with your not counting road noise as a factor. I live in the southwest and often drive for 8to10 hrs on trips. Road noise will drive you nuts after that long a time and wet performance is only a factor about 10 days a year.

 

[krzyss]

If you live where it is dry then wet performance is not important.

Krzys

 

[CapriRacer]

Just an FYI on the JD Powers survey. I used to spend a lot of time pouring over those surveys and there is some real quirkiness about them.

There seems to be a "halo" affect in this survey - that overall satisfaction with the vehicle leads to overall satisfaction with the tires on that vehicle. I've seen situations where the same identical tire was rated quite differently depending on what vehicle it was on.

There also seems to a "one size fits all" approach to how the ratings are done - and that is that if a consumer is satisfied with his tires, then he rates everything about them high. But if he is dis-satisfied, then he rates EVERYTHING about them low. This makes trying to figure out what the consumer is dis-satisfied with difficult.

There are also situations where the rating of the tire has nothing to do with the tire itself. For example, there was a tire supplied to a mini-pickup that was rated very poorly - and "appearance" seemed to be the issue. It turned out that folks where pointing out that they felt a P185/75R14 was too small for this vehicle.

Those 2 items combined seems to drive these surveys.

And as I have pointed out repeatedly, OE tires are designed by the car manufacturers - that is the characteristics an OE tire has is all about what the car manufacturer wants - and nothing about the tire manufacturer. That's why so many OE tirse have wear and traction complaints. The car manufacturers want rolling resistance and they sacrifice wear and traction to get it.

Notice the disconnect between the OE tire surveys and the replacement tire surveys. So use caution and common sense when looking at these surveys.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

CapriRacer, thanks for the information and insight. As usual, your information is well thought out, from a very knowledgeable source, and highly valued.

 

[weebl]

Originally Posted By: MarkStock

I was quite surprised to find that Lexus typically put on original tires which ranked real low on tirerack. I recall them being Continental.


I'm not. OE tires I've found over the years to be just ho-hum adequate at best, and usually ranging from mediocre all the way down to downright horrifying.

There's a big reason for this. As CapriRacer has told us, an OE tire is selected in the following way: from a pre-qualified list of suppliers, the car manufacturer gives a number of performance criteria (as well as appearance, speed rating, load index, etc) to the pre-qualified tire manufacturers to bid on. The focus is often on fuel economy, which means traction is given up. Road surfaces that these tires are tested on are often different than the real world too. Engineers at the car company then narrow down the selection from what the tire makers provide.

From another regular on here (can't remember who), who is privy to the financial side of things at car makers, the bean counters are heavily influencing the decision to pick from that short list the cheapest tires.

The names you see on the sidewall, and even the tread patterns used are meaningless. These tires, other than superficially, bear no resemblance to the aftermarket versions sporting the same names and tread patterns.

The only one advantage to OE is the tolerance for variances from spec is very tight compared to the aftermarket. But big deal if these tires don't perform the way they need to for the real world.

In summary, OE tires are poor performers, picked for fuel economy performance and from a lower cost bidder. I've found that the likely hood to end up with the best of the poor performers seems to depend on the car maker as well as the tire brand that was picked, which I read as how aggressive the car maker wants to pursue the fuel economy thing, and the tire maker's ability to minimize the fuel economy-traction trade off.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: weebl
The names you see on the sidewall, and even the tread patterns used are meaningless. These tires, other than superficially, bear no resemblance to the aftermarket versions sporting the same names and tread patterns.


If you're saying what I think you're saying, that you can't buy the OEM tires in the aftermarket, this is not really accurate, at least in my experience. It's very possible to buy the exact OEM tire that came on your car from a third party (like a tire dealer). One of the dead giveaways is GM's TPC, or Tire Performance Critera. This code is molded into the sidewall, and quite prominently, of most tires that comes as OEM on GM vehicles. When you see this code on a tire you're buying, you know that it comes on SOMETHING made by GM. Additionally, GM actually recommends that you continue to buy those same tires (with the GM TPC) for your vehicle when you need new ones.

More: http://www.heinrichchevy.com/MiscPage_2

Depending on the manufacturer, there are other ways to spot OEM tires (and to buy OEM tires if you really want that). Take, for instance, the Michelin Symmetry in 225/60R16 size. Go to Michelin's website and scroll to the bottom. See those two 225/60R16 sizes? One's actually a P225/60R16 97S size, with a white stripe sidewall, and OEM on Ford. One's a 225/60R16 98T, with a black sidewall, and OEM on Honda. Part numbers are 98499 and 85237 respectively.

Okay, cool. Want that 98499 that comes on the Ford Panther cars? You can get it from 1010tires.com; check out their website. Sam's Club will sell you the 85237s if you like.

The Firestone FR710s on our 2012 Malibu at work, with the GM TPC SPEC 1323MS on them...you can't get a "non GM" version of that tire from Firestone. Every single Firestone FR710 in P215/55R17 93S size that you buy will be the very same ones that GM puts on the Malibus at the factory. Ford has its own OEM information. It's generally an F code followed by 4 or 5 numbers. Ford used to fit the Cross Terrain in P225/65R17 100T on the Ford Escape Limited. The previous owner of our CR-V had these installed, complete with the F code (because you can't buy a non-OEM version of the tire in this size). And their durability, predictably, was lousy.

You do have to be real careful when buying a tire model that also comes OEM on something. You may or may not be getting what you think you're getting.

Edit: I re-read your post again, and my reply. If you are saying that an OEM tire, depsite looking just like another similar tire of the same model, won't necessarily perform like that other similar tire of the same model, then please disregard everything I wrote above because I agree with you completely!!

 

[weebl]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Edit: I re-read your post again, and my reply. If you are saying that an OEM tire, depsite looking just like another similar tire of the same model, won't necessarily perform like that other similar tire of the same model, then please disregard everything I wrote above because I agree with you completely!!

Exactly what I was saying.

 

[skyship]

The ADAC reports do include noise, but most summer tyres are not so noisey, it is the winter ones that can make quite a racket at autobahn speeds.
I don't know what goes on with US companies or Japanese ones, but the German cars have very high spec tyres as OEM fit and looking at the types they fit they are still choosing tyres for braking performane, BUT I guess in the US fuel economy is now included as it is with engine oil choice for most new cars, although some car companies are fitting all weather tyres, which is silly as they are bad in snow and on hot dry roads. No one can make a compound that is both hard and soft for a tyre, unless they heat it or something odd.
If you live in a dry place then obviously you need to look more at dry braking figures.
Originally Posted By: Smoky14
Originally Posted By: skyship
Do yourselves a favour and read the German reports:

http://www.adac.de/infotestrat/tests/reifen/default.aspx?
ComponentId=29895&SourcePageId=0

The only thing that matters is stopping performance, not noise and wear rates, which is how most dipsticks rate their tires.
Pay real attention to wet braking distances, as Michellin do make good tyres, but on average for all the different sizes and types I would rank them based on RDAC braking tests as Continental, Nokian, Dunlop, Michellin, Pirrelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone, but there is not much to choose between the first 4 and every tyre and type will have a different result for the safest tyre.
Never use go green eco tyres as they might wear well, BUT are real bad in the wet and the non major brands can be a real horror story.

I must disagree with your not counting road noise as a factor. I live in the southwest and often drive for 8to10 hrs on trips. Road noise will drive you nuts after that long a time and wet performance is only a factor about 10 days a year.

 

[PandaBear]

User survey is not a good objective measurement.

I was reviewing between 2 tires of the same size on Tire Rack. Hankook H727 got awesome user survey and a Kumho (I think it is KH16+) got much worse.

Then I look at the Tire Rack road test with a similar car of same size tire. The H727 got almost 10' longer wet traction distance (to the point I would consider it as horrible from what I normally use), as well as everything being worse, than the Kumho.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the H727 buyers come from even worse tires, and KH16 buyers come from similar or better tires, and therefore have very different expectations.