Are Tires Covered Under a New Car Warranty

Last Updated on July 24, 2026 by Albert Duke

Generally, no. Tires are treated as a wear item on most new vehicles, similar to brake pads, and are excluded from the manufacturer’s bumper-to-bumper warranty. Instead, tires come with their own separate warranty from the tire maker, not the car maker. There’s one notable exception worth knowing about before you assume the answer is a flat no across the board.

This guide breaks down why tires are usually excluded, the one automaker that’s a real exception, the three different types of tire coverage that actually exist, and what you can do to keep whatever coverage you do have valid.

Why Tires Are Usually Excluded From a New Car Warranty

Automakers classify tires as a wear item, something expected to degrade with normal use, rather than a mechanical component covered by the vehicle’s warranty. Because of this, the responsibility for tire defects and performance typically falls on the tire manufacturer, not the car manufacturer, even though the tires came on the car when you bought it.

This split is baked directly into your car’s own warranty paperwork. Nissan’s factory warranty booklets, for example, bind in separate limited warranty sections for BFGoodrich, Bridgestone/Firestone, Goodyear/Dunlop, Continental/General, Michelin, and Toyo, since the tire limited warranty is provided by the original tire manufacturer, not Nissan itself, even though it’s printed in the same booklet you receive at purchase.

So if you bought a new Nissan riding on Michelin tires, your actual tire coverage terms come from Michelin, bound into the same document as your Nissan warranty, not from Nissan’s own coverage.

The GM Exception When a Factory Warranty Does Cover Tires

General Motors is a genuine, documented exception to the rule above. GM covers original-equipment tires against defects in material or workmanship under its bumper-to-bumper New Vehicle Limited Warranty, confirmed directly in GM’s own technical service bulletins filed with NHTSA covering both earlier and more recent model years of Chevrolet and GMC vehicles.

This is limited in scope: it applies to manufacturing defects in the original-equipment tires, not to road hazard damage like a nail or pothole, and not to normal tread wear. If you drive a Chevrolet or GMC and believe your tires have a genuine manufacturing defect, that claim can be handled directly through GM’s warranty process rather than routed only through the tire manufacturer, which is a real practical difference from every other major automaker checked.

Manufacturing Defects vs Road Hazard Damage vs Treadwear Warranties

Tire coverage actually breaks down into three separate categories, and conflating them is where most confusion starts:

• Manufacturing defect coverage is rare outside the GM exception above, and applies only to genuine production flaws like tread separation or sidewall failure under normal driving conditions, not damage you caused.
• Road hazard damage, meaning a nail, pothole, curb, or broken glass, is never covered by any factory or manufacturing-defect warranty, full stop. The only way this gets covered is through an optional, separately purchased protection plan.
• Treadwear or mileage warranties promise a tire will last a certain number of miles, commonly ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 miles today, before reaching its minimum legal tread depth. These are prorated, not free replacements. For example, a tire with a 60,000-mile warranty that wears out at 40,000 miles has used 70% of its warranted mileage, entitling the owner to roughly a 30% discount toward a replacement tire, not a free one, and you’ll still pay for mounting, balancing, and installation.

Should You Buy a Dealer Tire and Wheel Protection Plan

This is the natural next question once you realize road hazard damage isn’t covered by default. Dealers and manufacturers sell optional Tire and Wheel Protection plans specifically to fill that gap.

Toyota’s version, for example, will replace a tire damaged by eligible road hazards such as nails, broken glass, tree limbs, or a pothole, something the base factory warranty never covers, for a set term of coverage the buyer pays for upfront.

Whether it’s worth it comes down to your actual driving conditions. If you regularly drive on gravel roads, in construction zones, or in an area with rough or poorly maintained streets, the math tilts toward it being worthwhile.

If you mostly drive on well-maintained city or highway roads, you may be paying for a risk that rarely materializes. Neither answer is universally right, it’s a genuine cost-benefit call based on where and how you drive.

How to Keep Your Tire Warranty Valid

Whatever tire warranty coverage you do have, from the tire manufacturer, a GM factory exception, or a paid protection plan, keeping it valid comes down to a few consistent requirements:

1. Keep your purchase receipt and maintenance records. Most tire warranties require proof of purchase and service history to process a claim.
2. Follow the recommended rotation schedule, typically every 5,000 to 7,500 miles, since uneven wear from skipped rotations is a common reason claims get denied.
3. Maintain proper tire pressure. Underinflated or overinflated tires wear unevenly and can void warranty coverage. A reliable tire pressure gauge makes this an easy habit to keep up with.
4. Get periodic wheel alignments, since misalignment accelerates uneven tread wear that a warranty claim reviewer will likely flag.

Frequently Asked Questions