Compare car tyre retailers in New Zealand at Canstar Blue. Hyper Drive, Advantage Tyre Solutions, Bridgestone and Tony’s Tyre & Auto Care were compared on Overall Satisfaction, Customer Service, Product Rage, Quality of Tyres on Offer and Value for Money.
See our Ratings Methodology.
Kiwi motorists rate Hyper Drive the No.1 car tyre retailer in New Zealand.
Our review compares car tyre retailers on customer satisfaction, so you can discover what other Kiwis think about our compared tyre retailers before you make a tyre purchase. Think of it like asking hundreds of your friends and family which car tyre retailer they think is best!
Canstar Blue surveyed 810 Kiwis for their feedback on the car tyre retailers they’d used to make a tyre purchase, either online or instore, over the past two years.
The winning brand is the one that receives the highest overall satisfaction rating once all the scores from the overall satisfaction criteria are combined and averaged.
Find more detailed information on our Most Satisfied Customer methodology.
Sitting atop our awards table Hyper Drive achieves its No.1 position thanks to a near perfect set of ratings from its customers. Hyper Drive earns a top 5-Star rating in every category apart from Customer Service, for which it has a great 4 Star rating.
It’s worth noting that Hyper Drive earns more 5-Star ratings than the other three featured tyre retailers combined.
Hyper Drive is a Kiwi business that sells car tyres, wheels, batteries and a wide range of other car accessories. Hyper Drive is a predominantly online retailer that partners with a chain of over 250 independently owned fitting businesses across the country.
Purchase your new tyres online and either have them fitted at one of Hyper Drive’s partner garages near you, or opt for Hyper Drive’s mobile tyre service to fit your new tyres at a destination of your choice.
Hyper Drive’s best-price guarantee promises to beat any better price you can find on an identical or comparable item by 10% (Ts&Cs apply).
Sitting in second place on this year’s award table, Advantage earns a great set of ratings from its customers. The tyre retailer has two top 5-Star ratings, in the all-important categories of Customer Service and Value for Money, plus excellent 4-Star ratings across all the other categories, including Overall Satisfaction.
Midway through 2023, Beaurepaires and Advantage the Tyre Professionals merged, rebranding under the name Advantage Tyre Solutions. Kiwi-owned Advantage operates over 50 retail stores nationally.
Along with a wide range of tyre brands, Advantage also retails car batteries, oils and offers service packages focused on wheels, batteries, oil, wheel alignment and wheel balancing.
Bridgestone’s customers award the tyre brand a great set of ratings: a top 5-Star rating for Tyre Quality, plus 4 Stars in each of the other award categories.
Japanese company Bridgestone is the world’s largest tyre manufacturer. In New Zealand it operates over 160 stores that sell Bridgestone’s range of tyre brands, including Bridgestone, Firestone, Supercat and Dayon. Bridgestone’s tyre stores also sell batteries plus oil and other service packages.
Rounding out our awards table, Tony’s Tyre & Auto Care earns predominantly 3-Star ratings from its customers. However while this is not a top rating, it’s also not a negative rating. Rather it reveals that Tony’s customers are happy with their levels of satisfaction in those categories. Also note that Tony’s Tyre & Auto Care is great on price and takes home a 4-Star rating for Value for Money.
Tony’s Tyre & Auto Care is a Kiwi brand that has been in operation for four decades. The brand has 40 stores nationwide and has mobile tyre- and battery-fitting vans servicing the Auckland and Wellington regions.
Tony’s stores stock a wide range of tyre and battery brands, and select locations offer car servicing, repairs and WoF inspections.
Across all of Canstar Blue’s research, two factors always stand out when we ask Kiwis what’s important to them as consumers: Customer Service and Value for Money.
Value for Money is always important, especially when rating specific products, but Customer Service usually rates more highly when the consumers in our surveys are rating wider service providers.
And purchasing tyres is about more than just rubber. Consumers expect a high level of service when it comes to fitting their tyres.
This is reflected in what our survey respondents say when asked to rate what drives their tyre retailer satisfaction.
Just under half (45%) say Customer Service is most important, while just under a third (30%) claim Value for Money is their No.1 concern.
Here’s the full rundown of what Kiwi drivers say are the main things they consider when rating their tyre retailer choices:
Buying new tyres? Here are four key things to consider once your new rubber is on your rims:
The No.1 cause of premature tyre wear is under-inflation. Just a small drop below ideal tyre pressure can accelerate wear rates dramatically. So it’s advisable to check the pressure in your tyres every couple of weeks. And don’t forget the spare. The correct pressure for your car’s tyres can usually be found on a tyre placard inside the front door frame.
Brand new tyres have small rubber hair-like strands on their surface called vent spews, which help eliminate air bubbles from the tread during manufacturing. However, when tyres are still new, the vent spews can reduce grip, especially if you’re driving hard into a corner.
New tyres are also coated in compounds to prevent them sticking to their moulds, which is why they can feel slightly slippery.
Together vent spews and mould-release compounds can initially affect the grip of brand-new tyres. Therefore, it’s a good idea to drive conservatively on brand new tyres for their first 100km, until normal road abrasion eliminates both factors from the driving equation.
A tyre’s tread is designed to improve grip in wet conditions by eliminating water from between the tyre and the road.
When new, tyres offer about 8mm of tread. However, by the time they’re worn down to 1.5mm, they’re not pumping water away efficiently. So, realistically, for safety’s sake, it’s time to replace a tyre when its tread is down to 2mm.
A car’s front left tyre works the hardest, because:
Therefore it’s a good idea to rotate your car tyres regularly, to ensure even wear.
About the author of this pageBruce Pitchers is Canstar NZ’s Content Manager. An experienced finance reporter, he has three decades’ experience as a journalist and has worked for major media companies in Australia, the UK and NZ, including ACP, Are Media, Bauer Media Group, Fairfax, Pacific Magazines, News Corp and TVNZ. As a freelancer, he has worked for The Australian Financial Review, the NZ Financial Markets Authority and major banks and investment companies on both sides of the Tasman.
In his role at Canstar, he has been a regular commentator in the NZ media, including on the Driven, Stuff and One Roof websites, the NZ Herald, Radio NZ, and Newstalk ZB.
Away from Canstar, Bruce creates puzzles for magazines and newspapers, including Woman’s Day and New Idea. He is also the co-author of the murder-mystery puzzle book 5 Minute Murder.
Cost is the biggest concern when buying tyres: 54%
Always buy the best quality tyres they can afford: 51%
Safety is the biggest concern when buying tyres: 51%
Canstar Blue surveyed 2503 New Zealand consumers across a range of categories to measure and track customer satisfaction, via ISO 26362 accredited research panels managed by Qualtrics. The outcomes reported are the results from respondents who had bought new car tyres over the past two years. In this case, 810 New Zealanders.
Car tyre retailers must have received at least 30 responses to be included. Results are comparative and it should be noted that brands receiving three stars have still achieved a satisfaction measure of at least six out of 10. Not all dealerships in the market have been compared in this survey. The ratings table is first sorted by star ratings and then by mean overall satisfaction. A rated brand may receive a ‘N/A’ (Not Applicable) rating if it does not receive the minimum number of responses for that criterion.
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