[6pack] Rotating radial tires/tyres

[Greg Donegan]

Andrew,

If your tires are marked on the sidewalls with an arrow showing the
direction of rotation, that generally means that those tires have an
asymmetrical tread pattern and you should not cross rotate them.  Those
tires will have to stay on the same side of the car and only get rotated
front-to-back, unless you want to spend the extra money and have them
de-mounted and rotated on the wheel, then you can put them on the other side
of the car, which keeps the direction of rotation the same but the tire is
running on the other side of the car, which will help even out the wear of
the tires.  I've done this many times on my Honda S2000's front tires to
even out the wear, which doubles the miles I can get out of them.  It saves
me money by doing that over just leaving them in the same spot until they
wear out.  If the tread pattern is not asymmetrical, then you can and should
cross rotate them to even out the tread wear and get maximum life from the
tire, cross-rotating these type of radials is recommended by most
manufacturers that I'm aware of. Again, if the tread pattern is NOT
asymmetrical, rotate them about every 5K miles, it does no harm to them at
all and is generally recommended by every "expert" that I've talked to.  If
the tread IS asymmetric, at least move them from front to rear every 5K
miles, it makes a big difference on most cars.  I treat the tires on my '72
TR6 the same way.  I've been doing this for over 30 years and never had any
problems at all, and it certainly keeps the tire wear even and makes them
last much longer, along with not having to listen to that obnoxious tire
sound from the cupping of the tread because the tires never get rotated.
I'm not really sure, but I believe that that whole "don't cross-rotate
radials" idea came from the early days of radial tires because there were
some issues with the steel belts within the tires shifting when the
direction of rotation was changed, but that was addressed a long time ago.
Really cheap tires may still have that problem, I don't know, but I always
try to buy the best tire that I can afford.  My .02 worth...

Greg Donegan
'72 TR6  CC82492UO
Hebron, KY

-----Original Message-----
From: 6pack-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:6pack-bounces at autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Andrew Uprichard
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2012 6:23 PM
To: triumphs at autox.team.net; 6pack at autox.team.net
Subject: [6pack] Rotating radial tires/tyres

OK, so what is the combined wisdom of the lists when it comes to rotating
radials?  

Some claim once a radial is used on, say, the driver's side it cannot be
moved to the passenger - so "rotating" means front-to-rear and vice versa.
Others poo-poo this restriction and say "rotate away!"

What do Triumph owners say?  And let's not have the obvious answer, "
Radial?  What's a radial?"  !!

Andrew Uprichard

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