A generous warranty on any new auto part purchase can help give buyers peace of mind, and tires are no exception. Many manufacturers offer a multi-year limited warranty period on their tires, as well as a mileage warranty. The longest mileage warranties can cover 80,000 miles or more, but most tires are backed by shorter mileage periods, or in some cases, no mileage warranty at all.

There’s no concrete rule that dictates that a certain type of tire will always be backed by a certain type of warranty, so it’s always best to check any given model’s warranty period before you purchase it. Even so, there are some tire types that are generally far more likely to have a short mileage warranty or none at all. Off-road and winter tires are usually among the worst for warranty coverage, alongside high-performance and track-oriented tires. Cheap, no-name brand tires can have poor warranties too, but we’ll get to those later.

The reason that high-quality specialist tire types don’t offer treadwear warranties is primarily down to their construction. Off-road and performance tires are made of a different rubber compound to standard highway tires, and they’re constructed differently too. This difference in construction and materials usually means that they wear much faster. Exactly how much faster they wear can vary considerably based on their usage; for example, consistent high-speed track use will wear a performance tire down much faster than mixed road and track use. That variation in wear rate, along with their shorter lifespan, means manufacturers usually don’t offer a mileage-based warranty on these kinds of tires.

Even across the ranges of highly-rated major tire brands like Goodyear, the mileage warranties of different tire models can be vastly different. The most long-lasting tires in its current lineup are the Assurance MaxLife and Assurance MaxLife2, which both carry an 85,000-mile warranty. However, some Goodyear off-road focused tires like the Wrangler Boulder MT and Wrangler AT are sold with no mileage warranty at all.

Michelin’s tire range is similarly varied, with its Defender2 all-season tire being covered by an 80,000-mile warranty while its track-oriented Pilot Sport Cup 2 models do not offer any mileage-based warranty coverage. Meanwhile, Michelin’s road-focused performance tire models like the Pilot Sport 4S and Pilot Sport A/S 4 do have mileage-based warranties, with its all-season model offering up to 45,000 miles of coverage. With such differences between different models of one brand, never assume that you’ll be covered by a long mileage warranty just because you’re buying from a premium brand.

High-performance and off-road tires are the types of tires that are most consistently offered with no mileage-based warranty, but budget tires can also sometimes offer an equally bad warranty. In general, our advice is to avoid buying cheap tires altogether if they’re from a no-name brand. The cheapest tires are often sold without any treadlife warranty, and they’re much more likely to wear out quickly. They can also offer less traction than name brand tiresparticularly in wet conditions.

Even if you’re on a tighter budget, buying very cheap no-name tires with no warranty isn’t ideal. They might cost less upfront, but since they’ll likely wear faster, you can end up spending more in the long run than you would have done if you’d have spent a little more upfront on better quality tires.

Cheap tires aside, the question of whether or not a tire with no mileage warranty is worthwhile depends on what you’ll use it for. It’s likely that anyone looking for a specialist off-road or performance tire will already have a specific use in mind for that tire, whether that’s conquering the track or the trail. In those cases, performance will often be a bigger factor behind purchasing decisions than longevity, making those tires worthwhile. But, if you drive primarily on paved public roads, it’s usually better to pick a road-oriented tire with a mileage warranty, even if you drive a vehicle that could in theory be driven on a trail or track.

A mileage warranty will give drivers additional reassurance that their new tires will last, but utilizing the warranty isn’t always easy. In many cases, tire manufacturers will only replace a worn tire under a mileage warranty if the owner can prove that they’ve been properly maintained and rotated according to schedule. In some cases, manufacturers can also ask for proof that a vehicle’s suspension components have been replaced, since a worn suspension can cause uneven tire wear. Warranties are usually not transferred between vehicle owners or between different vehicles.