Directional Tyres

[nicrowkz]

Hi everyone,

This is going to sound very stupid, I did google it but couldn't find much info... My front Tyres are directional Tyres and I've just found out they are in the wrong direction! I'm not going to have a chance to fix it until the weekend BUT what can actually happen of you have the tyres going in the wrong direction?

I noticed a few days ago the car was understeering in the wet when i was changing gears when I was driving in a straight line, hence why I thought I'd check them... Would the tyres going in the wrong direction be the cause of the car understeering?

Thanks

[Global_Warmer]

Hi everyone,

This is going to sound very stupid, I did google it but couldn't find much info... My front Tyres are directional Tyres and I've just found out they are in the wrong direction! I'm not going to have a chance to fix it until the weekend BUT what can actually happen of you have the tyres going in the wrong direction?

I noticed a few days ago the car was understeering in the wet when i was changing gears when I was driving in a straight line, hence why I thought I'd check them... Would the tyres going in the wrong direction be the cause of the car understeering?

Thanks

If your tyres are directional either driving or steering, they will essentially be "sucking up" water instead of dispersing it. Now there is no need to have the tyres removed off the rim to correct the problem... it should be as easy as swapping rims from either side of the car which will reverse the tread pattern direction to then be the correct way!

[Bullet32]

This is going to sound very stupid

It's not as 'stupid' a question as you might think... I have seen many cars on the road that have directional tyres on backwards (I always have a bit of a chuckle to myself).

Directional tread patterns are essentially only designed to work properly when they rotate in the right direction... Although they will still disperse water and provide dry grip they won't work anywhere near as well when rolling backwards... Especially on wet roads.

They probably are to blame for your car under-steering in the wet because at driving speeds (anything over about 30kmh) they aren't able to channel water out of the tread grooves efficiently enough and the directional tread sipes aren't opening up to provide extra leading edges to cut through the layer of water and grip the road underneath.

As Global_warmer suggested: just swap the wheels from side to side and you should find that they'll perform much better.

[nicrowkz]

Thanks heaps guys :)

So if I swap front left to right and right to left that will put the tyres into the right direction yeah?

[mystery_kid]

for the tl dr; crew

it won't make any difference in the dry but in the wet it will you're screwed

[Duncan]

yeah agreed.....I've often run directional race tyres on the wrong side in the dry, there was no noticeable performance difference.

But in the wet they must run in the right direction

[Bullet32]

Thanks heaps guys :)

So if I swap front left to right and right to left that will put the tyres into the right direction yeah?

Yep