Are Cooper Tires Better Than Goodyear? What Consumer Reports Data Says
Cooper and Goodyear have been making tires in America for over a century now. Cooper Tire can trace its roots back to the 1910s, while Goodyear has been around for even longer: founder F.A. "Frank" Seiberling first established the brand in 1898. That's not quite early enough to make it the oldest tire brand still operating, but it's still pretty early all the same.
The two tire brands share more than just a made-in-America heritage and histories that stretch back more than 100 years, though. Goodyear purchased Cooper Tires in 2021, uniting these stalwarts of the American tire manufacturing industry under one roof. But while the two companies share ownership, Goodyear has a clear advantage in tire quality — at least, according to Consumer Reports' testing.
Goodyear placed in the top 10 of Consumer Reports' best tires of 2025, alongside other prominent names such as Nokian Tyres, Hankook, and Kumho. Conversely, Cooper Tires didn't even make it into the 18 best brands, ranking lower in CR's estimation than brands such as Nitto and budget-oriented GT Radial.
How Goodyear and Cooper Tires' products performed
Goodyear may have placed well above Cooper Tires on CR's list, but neither brand looks to be the most compelling choice for those looking to replace their car tires. Consumer Reports' best-performing tires of 2025, for example, mostly come from Michelin, with Continental and Nokian products also in the mix for more specific use-cases.
That said, it's not like Goodyear doesn't make any good tires. Those seeking a sporty summer tire could conceivably consider a set of the brand's Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 tires. CR rates these as having near-identical performance in aspects such as dry braking, handling, and road noise to other high-performance favorites such as Michelin's Pilot Sport 4s and the Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02. The Goodyear Assurance ComfortDrive all-season SUV tire is also a solid choice, earning a CR Recommended award for its strong overall performance and great low-noise running, although it's still well behind offerings from Michelin and Vredestein.
In contrast, the only Cooper Tires offering Consumer Reports reviewed, the Cooper ProControl all-season tires, were quite mediocre overall. While they were decent in the dry, sub-par braking performance in wet and icy weather arguably meant that it failed to live up to its all-season branding. While it's not the worst all-season tire in CR's database, you're likely better off spending extra to get a significantly better product like the Vredestein Quatrac Pro+.