ooops! Unidirectional tires

I've been reading the advice and comments on tires for a couple weeks now. I finally went and checked mine out. Methinks I might have a problem. I'm running Dunlop SP Sport R2 P185/60R14 on 7 spoke rims. As I was checking the air pressure (28psi) I noticed those little arrows mentioned in some other notes here. Now... The arrows on the two passenger side tires *are* pointing in the direction of rotation but the arrows on the drivers side are both pointing in the wrong direction. I have checked the tread pattern of the tires and the drivers side tires are reversed from the passenger side. All four tires are mounted with the words *mount this side out* on the outside of the tires. I assume (I know) that this is as should be but I'm concerned about those arrows. Should I be?

I have been diving this "li'l Blue" quite aggresively for almost two weeks now and it handles beautifully on dry pavement.

Please advise....

Thanks

JV

Reply to
JV
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Yes! Does that make a difference?

JV (fingers crossed)

Reply to
JV

Brain fart here on my part....Did I mention that the tread pattern is reversed on the two sides of the car?

JV

Reply to
JV

As far as I know, that will only effect the rain performance of a tire...the tread is only effective in the rain. Think about a race tire for the dry, no tread, maximum rubber on the ground.

Have you damaged the tires...probably not. Should you change them, yes...although I would be interested in seeing what happened if you tried to aggressivly stop and corner on wet pavement...Perhaps you have a large parking lot and a hose? Just kidding (sort of)

Blix

Reply to
Secret

Generally, directional tread patterns have some sort of "V" pattern to the tread. Looking at the front of the tire, the point of the "V" should be pointing downwards in 99% of the directional tires I have seen. As has been mentioned, this is really only a factor for rain performance. If you have a directional tire mounted the wrong way, in theory you will be pumping water out from under the tread which is facing the right way, and pumping water into the contact are on the side with falsely mounted tires. If you're not sure, go visit a competent tire shop and ask.

Stephen

Reply to
Stephen F.

That's not necessarily true, Lanny, if someone was stupid enough to put on, say, four lefts or four rights. In that case, all the tires could say "outside" on the outside but two of them would still be wrong.

Reply to
tooloud

On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 20:53:22 GMT, "tooloud" wrote in news:bgh8c2$o85ia$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-121148.news.uni-berlin.de:

I suspect that no tire manufacturer would make a unidirectional tire which could only be mounted on one side of a car. Therefore if the tire says "outside" it is most likely not a unidirectional tire.

Some cars with unidirectional tires use different size tires on each end and so there is no rotation possible.

Reply to
Dave Null Sr.

I confused myself. I was thinking of tires already mounted.

Reply to
tooloud

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