This has been bugging me! Radial tires does direction matter??

[diesel lover]

This question is about automotive and class eight highway truck tires.

I have heard this myth time and time again from the older generation. They tell me once a radial tire has started being turned in one direction then, you do not change the direction of rotation. It is said when you change the direction of the tire it will wear out excessively fast and twist the belts in the tire. I have seen directional and non directional tires and non directional tires. I mostly work with tractor trailer and trailer tires but I have seen a few automotive tires that are directional.

Some people and car owners manuals say to rotate tires front and back some say to cross them. At my job at a truck shop (class eight tandem drive axle trucks) they want us to start crossing the tires on the drive axle. So left front will go onto right rear and right rear duals onto left front and so on. Some mechanics say the tires on these trucks (295/75/22.5) will wear out fast after the direction is changed. What do you think?

 

[puckgrinder85]

We rotate them according to the tire wearing habits. If a front tire wears abnormally and follows the rolling direction we will throw it on the other side so it rolls the other way to "correct" or mitigate the tire wear a little. This is assuming no directional tires are on and no abnormal steering/ suspension issues. With directional tires you're definitely limited but that's tread shape, not the carcass. I've seen a few belts separate but I don't think any could be attributed to rotating them from original direction of rotation. Most issues were due to age and/or hitting a large pot hole etc..

 

[Bird]

Unless they are specifically made to be directional tires, I believe in crossing them. In fact, I let Discount Tire rotate my tires every 7k miles and check the tire balance every second rotation (14k miles) unless I feel one or more might be out of balance, in which case they check the balance sooner.

 

[diesel lover]

Unless they are specifically made to be directional tires, I believe in crossing them. In fact, I let Discount Tire rotate my tires every 7k miles and check the tire balance every second rotation (14k miles) unless I feel one or more might be out of balance, in which case they check the balance sooner.

Right! I believe designated directional tires do not like their rotational direction changed when 40% or more of the tread is remaining. I have seen steer tires on class 8 trucks swapped side to side to minimize right steer tire wear. It is normal to have the outside edge of a truck steer tire wear out the fastest due to driving in the right lane of freeways and the crowning of the right lane etc.

Personally I like non directional tires better

 

[JoeL4330]

If the tire is "directional" it will have an iconic arrow showing the direction of rotation...
However, the point of directional rotation tires has to do with the tread pattern ...especially for rain and/or mud-snow tires ...to properly channel the water to avoid hydroplaning and, for snow tires, to let the tread shed the snow ...just as on R1 tires.

 

[bcjmmac]

Don't think it matters. I rotate in a pattern that takes 4 changes to get the tire back to the original spot, lf - rr, rr - rf, rf-lr, lr -lf. Haven't seen any excessive wear, but also never get the "published" tire life either (i.e. 60,000 miles).

 

[chopped]

Ive never considered this All mine seem to wear equal I will sometime rotate front to rear rear to front because of more wear to the front(drive axle). but otherwise just run them anyway It goes.I do pay attention when the tire is label direction but never really knew why, I assumed it was to push rain water out of the pattern more easily

 

[Gary Fowler]

I am old school and when I do rotate, it is only front to rear and rear to front. I don't see any need to cross switch them. I get pretty even wear with this method and can usually get the advertised mileage out of a tire barring road hazards.

 

[Mikeeemo]

I used to sell tires.

The crossing of tires is to counteract negative wear patterns that develop in the steer axle tires, in some situations. The part about not crossing started over the first generation radial tires, and has stuck ever since. These tires had problems. Radial tires of today are much more mature and can tolerate the direction change.

I advocate doing something, as most tires do not get rotated.

 

[rswyan]

I cross rotate (which reverses direction) ... considering that I'm getting 150,000 to 175,000 miles out of set of tires, I'd say that it's ok to do ... at least with Michelin LTX's ...