Tyre rotation. directional reversing an option?

Well as a mechanic we were told never to reverse a tyre direction as it upsets the belts in the tyre?

It depends, some tyres have a specific direction of rotation and that is marked on the tyre usually with a arrow I.E>Pirelli P6000 I think from memory.

AS for the standard run of the mill radial tyre it would not matter Which way it went on from new, but if half worn it may be dangerous, not 100% sure on that but.

From my experience as a mechanic and tyre fitter wheel aligner and mug, changing direction of tyre rotation is a no no, you only have to look at all the rubber on the side of the road, I just had to change it, and when the customer was told the cause of there retread blowing the first thing they asked was did we have another second hand tyre.Mugs. Barnray
PS Fact. B

I was told years ago by a elderly respected salesman at BOB JANE that you gould not do this as everybody was running cross ply tires,, these days it does'nt matter with the radials unless it has a direction arrow on the side wall for the tread pattern.....other wise if this was the case of being dangerous, you would'nt do any reversing would you.

This has been a hot topic at work. No - not a tyre business.
Couple of friends have had tyre failures after rotating the tyres diagonally.

From what we can work out, even with radial tyres, the belts do get a direction of lay in them.
And, we have found that if tyres are diagonally rotated and then run at high speed like 100km/hr after rotation, tyre failure is quite common.
e.g. rotating tyres the day before a trip.
However, if the tyres are diagonally rotated and then run around town at 60km/hr for a week or two before the trip, tyre failure is a lot less.

This sample test is over a number of years, about 40 tyres among 4 or 5 friends.

Still prefer not to reverse the direction of a tyre, but I have at times to even out wear without any problems by running them around town before a trip.
No guarantees though!

Never had a case failure in 30 years of driving and have always rotated all 5 .
Think about this , a front wheel drive vehicle has the torque in 1 direction when under power and when you hit the brakes the torque is in the opposite directiion the constant reversal of torque would cause the said case failure .
if you run retreads I believe it would be another story but who would run retreads as a GOOD retread is almost the cost a a new tyre .

cheers Dave L.

Front Right, put on Back Left, causes reverse rotation...
Front Left, put on Back Right, causes reverse rotation...

However it also extends the service life of the tyres, as the front tyres generally have some uneven wear due to stearing and wheel alignment hassles and are placed on the back where the uneven wear is generally not noticed as much in the stearing when the more or less level rear tyres are fitted to the front.

If the thought of internal tyre damage is of concern then change them to the same side, front to back.

The idea of fitting a tyre only facing one direction, I believe is questionable, as it indicates the tyre is specifically manufactured to only run in one direction, so a tyre that does not have the directive to be installed facing in only one direction is a better buy, because you can change them anywhere on the vehicle.

I assure you tyres like "Yokahama Superdiggers" are an example of a tyre that the manufacturer specifies CAN be fitted facing in either direction and can in fact be changed in direction while in use, totally negating the "dangerous" theary.

"Blow out causes death" causes death is almost an urban myth. Many drivers besides me have had 100kmh blow outs. Me being a prospector and ripping out tyres regularly, I've had more than my share of 'em as I did tend to use anything that's "black & round & keeps air in". Ripping a new "Super Digger" is not my idea of fun bush travel.

Hence - lotsa blow outs!

Just don't touch the brakes, take yer foot off the accelerator and let the vehicle slow down of it's own accord. Try not to change down to use the engine as a brake.

Just ride it out and you'll live. It'll be a bit bumpy and yer rim might get roughed up a bit, but you'll live.

If you even just touch the brake pedal, you're asking for trouble.

Bilbo

I have only ever seen one set of 4X4 tyres with a directional arrow, and that was some Bridgestone winter duellers on an FJ62 I bought. Crap tyre, got rid of them as soon as I could afford something better (BFG AT's).

If there was an issue with it being dangerous then you would find it stamped on the side of the tyre.

If there was an issue with it being dangerous then you would find it inside tyre brochures.

If there was an issue with it being dangerous then you would find it writen on posters at tyre shops and anywhere tyres are sold, fitted, repaired etc; etc; etc; blah blah blah

Went from Kununurra south, then east, then north to the Cape along all sorts of roads - tracks etc over 10 months, around 25,000km, without a tyre problem.

At Weipa, heading south, decided to replace the a rear wheel complete, and put a spare tyre on the second rear rim.

Next day one of those had a tread separate near Archer Creek. Stayed at the creek for 3 days then the next day the second of the tyres that was swapped over at Weipa threw a tread.

Got warranty on both at Mareeba but Beaurepaires couldn't give a reason why the two tyres that had been 'resting' for 10 months let go.

No further problems since, 2 years later.

Maybe they were rotating the 'wrong' way?

Banjo (WA)

isnt the arrow on direction tyres only there for grip and water displacement?
My understanding is that off road tyres and general tyres do not have such directional attributes

Lots of interesting ideas get put forward about tyre failures on this forum, some of which seem to have a lot of thought put in.
Have been driving on these round black things for a long time now and have also some thoughts.

A "blowout" is almost without exception a tyre wall failure. They can be of two types; a single hole or the entire wall circle (zipper effect). In my experience the single hole type can be caused by a) staking the wall with either a sharp stone, a sharp stick or the jagged edge of bitumen sealing, or b) by overloading the tyre for the pressure in it and its rating. This failure can also follow sidewall damage at some previous time eg: hitting a curb.
A zipper type blowout is the catastrophic failure of the sidewall most often caused by overloading the tyre for the pressure in it. Most often caused by running half flat and is the result of heat build up in the wall fabric plies due to friction.

Moral; Tyre pressure and load!!!

If the tread cap has seperated from the rest of the tyre, then the heat build up has caused the vulcanised welding of the cap rubber to the tyre carcase to release, causing lots of noise and bits of rubber flying off. Again, heat build up.

Moral; tyre pressure and load!!

tyre carcase construction has little or no effect on which way a tyre should rotate. Tyre tread pattern on the other hand does. If there is an arrow on the side of the tyre wall, then that is the direction of rotation that the tread has been designed for. Some tractor and earthmoving tyres can be the exception, in that they may have two arrows on them, both pointing in opposite directions. this indicates the tread is designed so that they are most efficient in applying drive in one direction, and being non power delivering in the other. Most directional treads are designed to move friction inducing material eg. water, away from the centre of the tread.
Swapping tyres diagonally will usually even out their wear over time, and will pose no danger so long as the tyre is structurally sound.
The difference between radial and crossply construction is rather complex but put simply a radial tyre usually has less fabric plies in the wall than a crossply or bias ply tyre. This reduces the amount of friction caused heat buils up and also allows the tread portion of the tyre to stay in better contact with the road surface.
It seems that some of the science used to reach some of the conclusions here is a bit flawed. If you load up the 4b more than usual, then you drive it faster than usual, maybe, just maybe thats the answer. More load, greater speed equals more heat, equals tyte wall failure.

In thirty years of driving trucks, cars, utes, 4bs and farm machinery on rarely maintained country dirt and gravel roads I have two tyre failures. The first on an inside dual rear truck tyre severely underinflated (thought we might get to a tyre pump, but no), the second due to hitting a rock with a radial tyre some couple of weeks prior.
When you stop and feel the temperature of your tyres and one is too hot to comfortable hold your hand on it, it is going to fail unless you do something about it. Now.

The Bridgestone AT 265/70/R16 tyres on the Patrol have done 90,000, have all five been rotated in all manner of ways and run 29psi front and 26-28 psi rear, and are starting to look a bit worn now.

PS. That tyre you have been saving for a rainy day, either sitting in the shed or on a trailer not getting any use is going to loose its elasticity and the hard rubber will also heat up and fail.

These are some of the lessons I have learned from about fifty years of country driving

Mike

I am not a tyre expert but I have been told numerous times by tyre fitters and mechanics that if a tyre has a directional tread pattern that it must be fitted to comply with that pattern, as this is the way the tyre has been designed to perform it's best.

Most of the AT tyres out there (and some MT) do not have directional tread patterns which allows for the tyres to be placed on any position on your vehicle.

Tyres like the Baja Claw etc do have a specific 'V' shaped tread pattern so that the 'V' rotates forward thereby allowing for the tread to grip correctly and provide the traction required. However, having said that if you have a copy of the Nov 2005 Aust 4WD Monthly there is a story, pages 201 - 205, in there about the writer having a LPG system fitted to his GQ Patrol.

If you look closely at the photographs of his vehicle it appears that he has a set of the Baja Claws fitted with the distinctive 'V' pattern facing forward on three of his four tyres - the two front and passenger side rear, and his drivers side rear is fitted with the 'V' pattern facing rearward!!. Maybe he knows something we don't.

Karl

I've read this post with great interest, I've never heard before of rumors that switching the direction in a rotation can cause problem. Been driving 17 years, always rotated, never had a problem. I just did a crisscross rotation a month ago. I was kinda looking for a general concensus in the above posts, and can't see one, so no closer to deciding for myself is real or another problem, but the whole push for rotation all over the place (shops, manuals, etc) for so many years now, hard to believe that its bad for ya.

Mate who works for ARB doesnt recommend it for directional tires.
Theres a reason they are directional.

non directional, he mentioned the belts one way thing too, so I believe what he says. YMMV on this.

I dont know what the bloke is smoking that was talking about braking and acceleration being the same forces, they are nothing alike.

What about literally turning a tyre around on the same hub.

eg. my Pajero wears front tyres on the inside quite severely and the rear ones have oinly a small bias towards inside wear. If I swap the two front tyres or rotate the two rear ones, back to the front. The biased wear to the inside of the tyre does not change no matter where on the vehicle the wheel is placed.

Any tyre people had this requested?

every one do a search on directional tyres and make up your own mind!
for my 911s i keep them rotating on the same side ie direction!...eg Lr to Lf and Rf to Rr..etc etc
for the 100's 4wd i'll swap them Lr to Rf
L=left
R=Righ
f=front
r=rear

Lot, of opinions both ways - for what it's worth my regular tyre supplier told me not to reverse tyre rotation on steel belt radials. The statement was made that the tyre can build a "memory" for want of a better term and that reversing roation could lead to belt/tread seperation from the case.

He tells mey that its quite OK and the cross plys with nylon/rayon or whatever belts, but not for the steel belts.

I might add that he gets my truck back every ten thou for tyre rotation and my wifes FWD shopping trolly every five, he rotates front to back same side and declines to do the front left to right rear etc:

Ian

I would suggest that some of you guys read your vehicle MANUAL on tyre rotation and also look at whether your tyres are directional specific.

You do realise that if the tyre does not have a specific direction that the tread pattern is the same in either direction, god gave you eyes use them.

Com'n Truckster I have always respected your intelligent contributions to this forum
I aint smokin nuffin , the front wheel drive thing was a simple analogy to point out that it makes stuff all difference which way the tyre rotates or where it is on the vehicle , Who ever brought the "directional" treaded tyres into this forum has also missed the point , that is another argument completely.
Fair dinkum I first heard this when radial ply tyres where a new thing and I believe that it was relavent at the time as the manufactures had not yet perfected the art of good bonding of the rubber to the steel belts , but that was a transient thing the people in the tyre game that I know agree, I am talking 40 years ago!

Simple advice . don't do anything that will over heat your tyres and you won't have a problem unless you buy crap tyres in the first place.

cheers Dave L.