Most tyres will go onto a wheel either way round. A directional one will not. Its tread is cut as a V pointing forwards, so that as the tyre rolls the grooves throw water out sideways and rearwards from under the contact patch, and an arrow moulded into the sidewall says which way it has to turn. Mounted the other way round, the same pattern gathers water and funnels it inwards.
The awkward thing is that nothing tells you. It holds air, it looks new, it is quiet enough at town speeds and it passes a glance from anyone not hunting for the arrow. What has gone is wet braking distance and resistance to aquaplaning, which are the two things that pattern was bought for.
It happens more often than people expect. Moving a wheel across the car during a rotation reverses its direction of travel, and so does a second-hand wheel bought with a tyre already on it. When we bring a set to a driveway we check each arrow before anything is torqued, and one already on backwards comes off the rim, gets turned and rebalanced. You have nothing to buy.
Most of the sets we fit go on during the working day, while nobody is using the car. An office car park in Woodford Green, a retail bay, a space outside the house that is empty until six. Old tyres leave Highams Park, Charlie Brown's and IG8 with us, every time. You watch it happen in Highams Park, or at the kerb in Charlie Brown's. The IG8 postcode and a street in Charlie Brown's: that is enough.
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Woodford does much of its mileage on fast dual carriageway, the A406 and the A104 Woodford New Road in particular, and that is the only place a backwards directional tyre really shows itself. In the dry at town speeds it behaves perfectly well. In standing water at speed it does not, which is why reading arrows is part of putting the wheels back on.
A set fitted somewhere else, and three of the four arrows pointed forwards. The fourth was mounted the other way round on an otherwise perfect tyre. Off the rim, turned, rebalanced and back on the car where it sat.
An owner in Woodford Green had swapped his front wheels to the back and crossed them over to even the wear, which is right for many tyres and wrong for directional ones. Two were running backwards. We turned both and explained the pattern to use next time.
A spare bought for a 4x4 near Highams Park arrived with a directional tyre already fitted. It would be correct on one side of the car and backwards on the other. Worth knowing at home rather than at the roadside.
Crouch by each wheel and read the sidewall. A directional tyre carries an arrow, usually with the word rotation beside it, and that arrow should point the way the wheel turns going forwards. No arrow means the tyre is not directional and either way round is fine.
No. The tyre is undamaged, it is simply facing the wrong way. It comes off the rim, gets turned, goes back on and is rebalanced, which is a short job at your door. You only buy a tyre if the tread was finished anyway.
They earn their keep if you cover a lot of fast wet miles, because clearing water is what the pattern exists for. The trade is flexibility, since they can only be rotated front to rear on the same side of the car.
Not unless they are being turned on the rims at the same time. Front to rear on the same side is the pattern. Asymmetric tyres differ: they are marked outside and inside, and the outer face stays outer, so they can cross the car.
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