Derf00

It's the internet, it doesn't lie, otherwise they couldn't post it on the internet....

Anyways, As long as your suspension is good, directional tires designed with a purpose will outperform a unidirectional tire designed for the same purpose.

If you get weird wear, it's a suspension/driving issue. Never had issues with directionals on my car and now I'm runing directional AND staggered. Rears are wearing faster but they are flat as a straightedge ruler accross the tread pattern.

BigWillJr

I've never been a big fan of them myself, but if it works it works. I usually just put the average, everyday regular tires on mine (I know) but I would be open to the directionals as long as they didn't make me give up my first born to buy them.

Art161

You've got to be careful when evaluating customer comments on the Tire Rack website. If someone is supposedly commenting on the Pirelli P Zero Nero All Season tire and says that was original equipment on his/her 2006 Mustang, the poster is wrong. The original tire was probably the Pirelli P Zero Nero M+S, which is a different tire. Pirelli even advised me not to use one All Season and one M+S on the same axle.

ski

Each car I've owned(see below) developed heel-and-toe tire wear, whether it was a performance car that was driven hard, or a family car that was driven conservatively. With the exception of the Probe GT's OEM directional tires, all of the tires on these cars were non-directional, and an X pattern rotation every 5K miles(plus frequent checks on pressures, alignment, and suspension components) increased their useful life.

'68 Plymouth RoadRunner, '78 Dodge Charger, '82 Dodge Omni, '86 Chevy Nova, '88 Mazda 626, '94 Ford Probe GT, '98 VW Beetle, '05 Mustang GT, '09 Honda Fit.

Norm Peterson

I won't try to claim that I get zero-point-zero H-T wear, but I will state that it's been absolutely minimal all these years (40+ and counting).

H-T wear is a tread block flexibility thing, which in turn is a function of the tread block size and tread depth. Large tread blocks do not distort as severely as little ones, and shallow treads distort slightly less than deeper treads. Basically, each tread block is a short, fat cantilever beam on an elastic foundation (the tire carcass structure).

I would expect "Touring" and other softer/quieter riding tires to exhibit worse H-T wear, but have no direct observations myself (I simply do not shop for tires with those qualities in mind . . . ever).

Just front to rear swapping in a RWD car will tend to minimize H-T wear if your driving includes both hard braking and hard acceleration without wheelspin. Hard braking being mostly a front tire matter gets balanced by hard acceleration that beats the tread blocks up in the opposite rotation sense.

Hard cornering probably plays a part as well, since the "heel" for lateral tread block distortion is at 90° to the "heels" for either acceleration or braking, and will tend to wear the leading and trailing edges of each tread block more or less evenly. Mid-length on the inboard edge of each tread block is about the only region that won't become the heel under hard loading.


FWIW, H-T wear is very much like the wear that slick go-kart tires exhibit across the tread, where the whole tire is distorting as a single "tread block" with the heel always on the outside. Couple friends of mine had karts back in the day.


Norm

ski

Thanks for the briefing. However, I fully understand the dynamics of heel-and-toe tire wear.

Certain non-directional tires on the cars I listed did develop worse heel-and-toe wear than others. But nonetheless, every tire developed it.
And that includes the tires on 2 of my vehicles that were driven mostly on the highway with hardly any hard accelerating, braking, or cornering.

Again, I've found that rotating the tires in an X-pattern has been the most effective method for smoothing out the treads, and extending their useful life.

ghunt

Little late on this discussion, but I'll only add that when I was looking at tires, I was actually considering a staggered setup for which I would want uni-directional tires. However, high performance tires that don't cost an arm and a leg and are non-directional are apparently non-existent. So I just ended up with directional Nitto NT555's. I will say that I've been very happy with them so far! Excellent traction especially on wet roads.

Norm Peterson

Just how bad has your experience with thei wear pattern been?

I'm going to guess that normal braking is the primary culprit and that it overwhelms the acceleration and cornering wear for most people and most cars.


Norm

Derf00

Dunlop Direzza DZ101 tires are what I'm running right now. Very happy with them and were $150 a piece (+mount/balance) at Discount Tire. They are a directional summer compound tire with a treadwear rating of 300 so they do not have a mileage warranty. Most tires under a 400 rating will not carry one since they are softer and wear faster.

ski

The heel-and-toe wear was horrendous on the Probe GT. However, its OEM tires were Goodyear Gatorbacks that had a treadwear rating a notch higher than bubble gum.
The others fared better, but H-A-T wear was very noticeable after every 4-5K miles at which time I rotated the tires.