J.D. Power has been running a tire customer satisfaction study annually since 1989, assessing two primary tire-related issues: How loyal new-car owners are to the brands of tires fitted to their cars as standard equipment and how satisfied these owners are with those tires. This study is just one of the many automotive studies the company conducts, with its 2026 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Survey naming the least dependable car brand for 2026.

J.D. Power’s U.S. Original Equipment Tire Customer Satisfaction Study breaks down tires into four different categories by vehicle type. These categories include tires for luxury cars, passenger cars, performance sports cars, and truck/utility vehicles. In J.D. Power’s 2026 U.S. Original Equipment Tire Customer Satisfaction Study, the least-satisfying customer satisfaction score for luxury tires went to Hankook tires, with a score of 756 points out of a possible 1,000. For reference, the top-scoring luxury tire brand was Michelin, which just overtook Goodyear with 833 points, followed by Goodyear with 829. Pirelli came in third with 804, Continental had 801, and Bridgestone scored 791. Except for Michelin and Goodyear, all of the other luxury car tire brands scored below the 806-point average for the luxury segment.

Hankook tires were also included in two other categories, namely passenger car and truck/utility. In the passenger car category, Hankook tires finished in eighth place among 11 tire brands, scoring a below-average score. It finished in last place in the truck/utility category among 10 other tire brands.

The JD Power U.S. Original Equipment Tire Customer Satisfaction Study starts out with information gathered from vehicle owners in the above-mentioned categories. For the 2026 study, these 38,244 respondents owned vehicles spanning model years 2023 to 2025. This info was compiled from January 2025 to December 2025 and broken down into each category. The J.D. Power tire study checks in on new-car owners twice, after one year and then two years of ownership.  

J.D. Power’s tire study also found that differences in overall satisfaction between different powertrains — internal combustion, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles — were the smallest since the 2023 edition of the study. The 2026 J.D. Power tire study also discovered that while overall brand loyalty to a particular tire brand increased to 54%, owners’ loyalty dropped to 42% if they had to replace at least two of their new car’s tires. The main reason for this drop in loyalty was attributed to tire wear.

The J.D. Power tire study also provides information about other areas of new-car owners’ tire-related satisfaction. These included tire endurance, how good they look, how well they ride, and the tires’ handling and traction. Fortunately, Hankook did not receive the absolute lowest score in the study — another passenger tire brand received J.D. Power’s lowest customer satisfaction score for 2026.