Directional Tires and non directional brain.

[rdgfx3]

I was having a problem with my 90 FX-3 C-4 handling a little odd i.e. rear end swinging out to the right on medium accelleration from a dead stop or a hard downshift(automatic trans),so I swapped out the wheels and tires with the original set I had stored in the garage.The handling problem went away.
It's raining now and the originals have very little tread and I must swap back to the other rims and tires with almost new tread.FYI 96 5 spokes bought new from my Chevy dealer.

I was mounting them and I noticed I had gotten them on backwards the last time I rotated them.Actually it may have happened two rotations back when I had the wheels off for several weeks.
I wonder if I may have damaged the tires by running them against the intended direction of travel.

Long story short,I had the left hand tires on the right hand side and the right side tires on the left.Have they been damaged internally? What really happens when you run directional tires the wrong direction?
Approximately 5000 miles driven since the suspected boo-boo.

 

[Interceptor430]

I hope it is true that 'directional tires' are named that based on the direction of the tread design to get the maximum traction, etc....And, since most other radial tires made today can indeed be rotated from left to right, I can only hope your tires are ok.
Sounds like they might be just fine if you have that many miles on them going the other way.

 

[rdgfx3]

Sounds like they might be just fine if you have that many miles on them going the other way.

They were getting squirrelly,uh squirely,hmm...squirr.... errrr...tree rat-ish,and handling poorly on take off.

Yea,I had always heard that you can't swap radials from side to side when rotating them,but from what I hear you *can*swap radials from side to side nowadays.

Still don't know about directionals though.I'll just have to hurry up and wait for someone who works or is knowledgeable about modern tire construction.

Back in 1980-81 I had the old Kelly Springfield N-50-15 tires on the rear of a 77 280-Z:crazy.G-50-14s on the front.The car had an IMSA flair kit on it that covered the MASSIVE rubber.Kinda looked lke somethin' straight out of Star Wars.I actually caused one accident that I know of from a guy staring at my car and he drove smack into the person in front of him.OOPS!

Anyway my point is tire construction has come a looooooong way since the KS 50 series tires.Those tires would grab every groove in the road and pull you where ever the groove went.A real b*tch to drive.:eekEven so,I loved that car.

But I love the Vette even more and I don't need my tread seperating.That tends to make puzzle pieces out of the fiberglass and in general ruin a Vette owners day,so I will wait to see if someone can tell me if this could happen to my tires due to my lack of attention when I mounted them backwards.:duh

 

[Hotred94]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I suspect directional tires have their belts laid in a manner to enhanse traction and handling in the forward direction.

Wether or not the tires are reversable, really doesn't matter much now. If they are reversable, nothing will happen and no problem. If they are not reversable, the damage process has already begun (5000 miles I believe you said) and you might as well run them until problems show up.

 

[vms4evr]

You might want to just go to the tire manufacturers website and send an email to their support folks. Just to make sure that you haven't caused an internal problem with the tire that will mkae them dangerous. Other than that I would just run them.

I'll bet it handled real good while you were backing up :L

Graham

 

[SPANISHVETTS]

I rang up Mr. D on this side of the pond. If you are running his tires he will not tell you that it is OK to continue using them. Liability and all of that. If he says yes and you have any tire related problem on those tires he just bought himself a boxcar load of legal problems. I do not know, but would imagine that the other manufactures will take the same position.:nono

We used to mount ¨rear¨ tires the wrong way on the front wheels of big bikes to cure front-end wobble. I can’t remember ever having one come apart. Tire life was so short back then that it is hard to say if spinning the wrong way had any effect on tread life or not.
:confused

 

[Corvette-Pilot]

I'll bet it handled real good while you were backing up :L

Graham

I think the directional issue is just in the tread pattern.
It must be set up for max traction plus the grooves run in such a way to let the water out from under the tire.

 

[Interceptor430]

Sounds like it's time to buy a new set of tires for your original
wheels. I put a set of Kumho's on my '91, and am very pleased with them. Nice tread design, and they have great DOT ratings.
The price is nice too(about $500 for 4).

 

[HallenTi]

When I got mine (1990 coupe) the previous owner had replaced the two rear tires, and who ever installed the tires on the wheels put them on the wrong direction. So, they just installed the wheels on the wrong side, so the tread direction was correct but the wheels were opposite. I didn't like the look of that, yet didn't want to put them on the correct side for the wheels and have the tread the wrong direction, so I asked at the Goodyear store. They assured me that it was a tread pattern directional issue, and the tires could in fact be run in the "wrong" direction. The tires properly displace the water when run in the correct direction for the tread pattern. I have since had them remounted so the tires AND wheels are correct. So, that would answer the "Why are they directional?" (water displacement) and the "Could I cross-rotate them?" (they will run in either direction, but optimal with the proper tread direction). At least that's what they said at Goodyear.

 

[rdgfx3]

I've been driving with them the past few days and have had no problems.
Thanks to everyone for the replys.