Not every tyre can go on either way round. Look at the sidewall of a modern tyre and you will often find an arrow marked with a direction of rotation, or the words outside and inside on opposite faces. Directional tyres have a tread pattern shaped to throw water out in one direction only, and fitted backwards they do the opposite of what they were designed for in the wet. Asymmetric tyres have a different pattern on the inner and outer halves, and swapping the faces puts the soft, quiet half where the hard, gripping half should be.
On an urgent job this matters because the pressure is on to get the car moving, and a tyre fitted the wrong way round still holds air and still looks fine. We read the markings before it goes on the rim, and if a directional tyre would have to go on the wrong side of the car to match the one already there, we say so rather than mount it and hope nobody looks.
Tyre age is a genuine reason for an urgent replacement even when the tread looks fine. We can check the codes on all four while we are with the car in SE17 and replace whichever genuinely need it, fitted and balanced on the spot. The the Camberwell Road area phone and the Walworth phone ring the same fitter, any hour. Midnight in Aylesbury Estate, midday in Burgess Park, the same call either way.
Emergency tyre replacement in Walworth is part of our wider mobile 24-hour emergency callout cover. For emergency tyre replacement in Walworth, call 07717 389637 or get a price for your tyre.
A good many of the urgent changes we do around Walworth Road and the Camberwell Road end are on cars that cannot easily be moved anywhere, boxed into a resident bay or parked on a street with nowhere to go. That is fine. The tyre comes to the car, gets read, mounted the right way round, balanced and torqued, and the space you were in is the space you keep.
The tread pattern clears water in one direction. Reversed, it channels water under the contact patch instead of away from it, and the tyre loses much of the wet grip you paid for. It is invisible from the driving seat and obvious on the sidewall.
Asymmetric tyres carry different tread on each half for a reason. Mounted the wrong way round the car still drives, but the cornering edge is now on the inner shoulder where it does nothing useful.
The Old Kent Road moves quickly and there is little room to stop, so a tyre fitted in a hurry is one you may be relying on at speed within a few minutes. That is precisely when a reversed directional pattern shows itself in the wet.
Look for an arrow on the sidewall, usually near the size markings, sometimes with the word rotation next to it. Asymmetric tyres are marked outside on one face and inside on the other.
In the dry, hardly at all. In standing water it matters a great deal, because clearing water from under the tyre is the whole job of that tread pattern.
Common car, SUV and 4x4 sizes travel on the van, so most SE17 jobs finish in one visit. Read us the full code from the sidewall and we will confirm before setting off.
We will tell you. Matching across an axle matters more than matching all four, and specification matters more than badge, but you should know what you are getting before it goes on.
Yes, for recycling. Nothing gets left leaning against a wall or beside a bin store when we drive off.
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