Hey. Well I got a hole in my new snow tires so I have to put on a summer tire on the drivers rear.

I was looking at the summer tires and well. One is labeled RL and RR from when they got dismounted to put on winter tires. Yeah but the problem is that the tires are mounted exactly the same. These are the STOCK potenzas on 19" rims. This was done on the fronts as well. What I am getting at is that if this was a unidirectional tire one side would be correct and the other side the wrong. Are these unidirectional?

In summary. Take my drivers rear tire. The passenger rear tire is mounted on the rim exactly the same. I can mount both tires on the drivers side and the tread would be in the same direction.

Here is a pic of the tread pattern


Both of my rear tires are mounted like this with the tread pattern this way. So If i take one of these tires and put it on the other side is the tread not backwards?

 

huh? i dont get it lol

 

If it says OUTSIDE on the outer sidewall of the tire when its mounted on the wheel, it is correct. The OEM tires are asymmetrical, not directional. They can go on either side of the vehicle so long as they're mounted correctly on the wheel.

 

Just look at the sidewall and see if it has a "rotation --->" on the sidewall. This will tell you the intended rotation. If you just need to run it in an emergency intil you fix the snow tire its not a big deal to run it backwards temporarily.

 

just curious, what if i flip my tires, not rotate but turn the direction, is that bad?

 

Ok. So I looked at the tires and see that the outside is correctly on the outside. Odd that the tread goes in the opposite direction on these. I could have sworn these were direction but I guess not.

 

Do people spend the time to flip flop their tires? Would this have any impact on tread life? A full rotation makes sense when possible, due to the drive vs. steering tires but a left for right swap?

 

^^Depends. Some people running a lot of neg camber will flip the tires because they tend to wear much more on the inside.

 

Cant flip these as there is a designation for outside. Now if people follow that is a different story.

 

So no on the flipping, but how about L/R swapping? I can't think of an advantage there, but I haven't worried about tires much in my life.