Art161

On a recent episode of MotorWeek, Pat Goss spoke about the drawbacks of directional tires. You can't rotate them from side to side (unless you demount the tires every time you rotate them), which gives you a shorter tread life and more noise as the tires wear.

So are asymmetrical tires the way to go? Even with a staggered setup, you can at least rotate the tires from side to side, even though you can't rotate them front to back.

Does anyone here think there is a compelling reason to use directional tires?

I know some people don't like to rotate tires at all because you can more readily spot alignment or suspension issues if the tires are always in the same position on the car.

Thanks for your comments.

moosestang

Most of your performance tires are directional and are going to wear fast anyway. I'm sure the benefits are traction, both in a straight line and cornering, but I'm no tire expert.

I personally don't spare my tires. I got 38,000 miles out of the stock all-season pirellis, only because they have no traction and are so hard it took that many miles to wear them down.

DRAGUL

I have directional and staggered. Once they wear out I will just replace them. It's the price to pay for running this setup. I do not want to dismount them to swap from side to side because odds are, the tire shop will eventually screw up a rim.

Nuke

I have directionals with 26,000 miles which have never been rotated. Other than the rears having a tad less tread than the fronts; correctable with front-to-rear rotation; mine have worn just fine. I personally think the average vehicle doesn't need the 5k mile tire rotation, hawked by money-grabbing tire dealers.

mayo

20K + with a staggered setup, no rotation...no problem. If I didn't go with a staggered setup I would consider unidirectional, but as rotation is limited on a stagger, I figured why not. Personally, I feel like rotating is over-rated.

Chromeshadow

I'm one of the believers that if my tires are wearing unevenly, I want to know asap and fix the problem, not cover it up by rotating the tires every 5K miles. All 5 of our vehicles have directional tires.

ski

FWIW

All tires tend to develop a sawtooth (a.k.a. heel-and-toe) wear pattern on the inner and outer treads. It can be felt by rubbing your fingers in the opposite direction of the tire's rotation. It happens even if the alignment is spot on, pressures are properly maintained, suspension components are in good shape, and the vehicle is driven conservatively. Rotating the tires from side to side extends their useful life by evening out this type of wear.

The first (and last) time I used directional tires was on a Probe GT. I had to replace all 4 of them at 15K miles. The center treads had worn only halfway, and were wearing evenly. But the inner and outer treads had developed an extremely pronounced sawtooth pattern, which compromised the tires' traction and also caused a horrific humming sound at all speeds.
I replaced them with non-directional tires, which lasted almost 40K miles mainly because the sawtooth pattern was evened out by periodically rotating them side to side.

Derf00

Directional tires allow for best traction because they are made to rotate in one direction only. They don't have to be designed to rotate in both directions. THis is really good for All season tires because they tend to have better wet traction.

I've always run directional tires and found their traction to be better than those that are not.

If they are wearing unevenly (per tire) then you have a suspension problem, period, end of story. Fix the problem and your tires will wear evenly accross their surface.

FrostByte

I always get the softest compound I can & I go thru 2 sets in the back to one for the fronts .

Now I have them staggered I cant even go front to back but thats OK.

petrock

I have GoodYear TripleTreads (directional) tires on my wifey’s Mustang and my Dodge Durango. I rotate them front to back, back to front every 10k miles. The last set on my truck lasted around 75k miles and my wifes is at around 60k with plenty of tread left. They are a little pricey, but paid for themselves in my opinion.

If you have a staggered setup (different size tires front & back), then of course you won’t be able to rotate your tires. Well, you could but your car would look silly with HUGE tires in front and tiny tires in the back. Plus you might also have some rubbing issues while turning with the larger wheel in the front. But if your not running staggered, then you definitely should rotate them. Either front to back, back to front for uni-directional tires or the criss-cross patter being promoted today for multi-directional tires. Your tires will last longer. It is a proven fact. Your front tires will wear faster then the rears. Its simple physics. The weight of the car shifts to the front in while turning and breaking, not to mention the lateral forces put on the front tires when turning, all of which puts a lot of stress on the front tires. So they wear quicker then the back. You rotate them to spread the overall load amongst all the tires, which makes then (as a set) last longer. Regardless of if you rotate your tires or not, if you have a front end problem you’ll notice uneven tire wear pretty quickly. If not, your just not paying attention. Just sayin’...