Tire mounted with wrong dir of rotation

[Pajamarama]

I have 2 Bridgestone HP550s on the front wheels of my Accord wagon.

http://www.bridgestonetire.com/tireselector/GlamourIndex_BS_EN.aspx?productID=2017

They used to be on the back, but about a month ago I got 2 new Michelin Primacy MXV 4 on the rear wheels. Money is tight, so I didn't get them all replaced at once. The new tires went on the back, and the old Bridgestones moved to the front.

Since I had this done, the front tires make a very loud roar on the road, esp. at speeds over 35 mph.

Today, I just checked and there is a very small direction symbol on the side of the tire. The front pass side is showing the correct direction of rotation. The front driver side is showing the wrong direction.

Questions:

Is this is at least part of the reason for the load road noise?
Will a month of wrong rotation damage the tire?
Is the solution to have it remounted on the wheel the right way?

 

[Eddie]

YES, Probably not and YES

 

[chad8]

Directional Tires will have an arrow on the sidewall. If it doesn't have an arrow, it's non-directional! and it doesn't matter which way it rotates.
Directional tires are primarily about wet traction - although snow traction is sometimes the intent in the design. As a general rule, directional tires will have an "arrowhead-like" tread pattern - it seems to point in the direction of travel.

If you mount a directional tire backwards - so that it is rotating the wrong direction - the only problem caused is wet (or snow) traction. It does not affect wear, pull, dry traction, ride, or any other characteristics. If you have one of those problems, then the problem has nothing to do with the direction of rotation of the tires.

 

[Pajamarama]

Originally Posted By: chad8
Directional Tires will have an arrow on the sidewall.


Yes it does, but very small -- which is why I guess I didn't notice it before:

ROTATION: >

The web page for the tires says it has a "directional tread pattern."

 

[eljefino]

They wouldn't have unmounted the "wrong" tire and put it on the rim backwards. So they just found the best two and stuck them up there: the passenger two, front and rear.

This could mean alignment troubles, or it could be the tech just spaced out if all your tires were about the same (but you say they weren't.)

But, for now, flip it around and don't worry.

 

[Pajamarama]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
They wouldn't have unmounted the "wrong" tire and put it on the rim backwards. So they just found the best two and stuck them up there: the passenger two, front and rear.

This could mean alignment troubles, or it could be the tech just spaced out if all your tires were about the same (but you say they weren't.)

But, for now, flip it around and don't worry.


OK, I will go back to NTB and have them flip it around on the wheel.

I do know that they took the back 2 and moved them to the front. The front 2 were almost bald which is why I had to have them replaced immediately.

I don't know if they flipped sides (i.e. pass to driver) when the rotated.

 

[LeakySeals]

Get it turned around immediately. Switch sides. Besides hydroplaning issues, what will happen is cupping and belt slip once you turn it around if its been on too long in the other direction. Once that happens no weight will ever get the shake out of it. When i bought the Camry it had a mix of tires, Yoko 2 Avid Envigors on backwards in the rear. Was too late when i turned them around. Junk.

 

[LeakySeals]

Question after reading again. When your standing in front of the car, correct tread pattern will be seen as a "V" (point is down). If tire is backward, the point is facing up " ^ ". Go look.

 

[yonyon]

My guess about the road noise:
Those tires (or at least one of them) has developed a heel-toe wear pattern. You can check for this visually if you know what you're looking for or otherwise just run your tire over the tread and see if it feels smooth in one direction but snags you in the other. If you don't have this, please ignore everything else I'm about to type as it isn't worth reading.

This is typical of a tire especially with a very consistent tread block size and will tend to be very pronounced it kept on the back of a car with little weight in the back and even more so if the shocks are weak or the tire is used with unnecessarily high inflation pressure. Moving the tire(s) to the front where there is more weight increased the noise produced by the heel-toe wear pattern.

Once you get the one tire turned around you may notice the noise changes somewhat. If you have a very dry season (I don't know what weather is like in your area) it may be worth your while to swap the tires left-to-right at the beginning of that season accepting the poor wet performance so that the heel-toe pattern smooths out a little with wear, then put them back before wetter weather shows up.

For the new tires in the back, if they don't have a directional tread pattern I'd recommend swapping them left to right every so many miles, maybe 10k or so give or take 5k. Regardless of whether the new tires are directional or not you might do well to reduce inflation pressure and check for weak shocks and any looseness in the suspension. A wheel alignment check might also be a good idea.

 

[krzyss]

The tires are directional and they are supposed to rotate the proper way. Go back to tire store and have them remount the tire the proper way.

From Bridgestone web page: "Advanced Directional Tread Pattern".

Good luck.

Krzys

PS Having it mounted wrong way does not help the noise or performace. Wear or damaging it - I do not think so.

 

[Pajamarama]

Originally Posted By: LeakySeals
Question after reading again. When your standing in front of the car, correct tread pattern will be seen as a "V" (point is down). If tire is backward, the point is facing up " ^ ". Go look.


I want to apologize to everyone who responded in this thread.

On one tire, the arrow was on the bottom of the tire and I misread the direction. Both appear to be mounted in the right direction.

Sorry about that.

But the "road roar" is real -- I moved my hand over the tire and noticed it felt smoother in one direction and caught in the other. I guess I have a heel-toe problem and maybe some cupping as well.

 

[CapriRacer]

Welcome to my world, folks. Let's of mis-information in this thread, so allow me to clear this up.

First: Thanks, Pajamarama for clearing up the issue of the direction of rotation. Many folks won't come back and admit an error.

Second, the only thing that is affected by having a tire rotate in the wrong direction is the wet traction (mostly hydroplaning resistance) - and the snow traction. Wear is totally independent of the tread pattern - so if there is irregular wear, it is caused by mis-alignment.

BTW, non-directional tires get heel and toe wear, too. To some extent it is a normal function of the way tires work. As a tread element enters the footprint, it is deflected out of the way and that creates the heel - and when a tread element exits the footprint it hangs on, then rapidly detaches causing some tapered wear - which causes the toe. This is aggravated by toe-in. In extreme cases, there will be a feather edge to the toe.

HOWEVER, tire wear is so complex that it is possible NOT to get heel and toe wear. That wear pattern can be worn off by other things that cause tire wear.

So just because you have heel and toe wear, it doesn't mean the alignment is bad. And vice versa - just because the tire doesn't have heel and toe, doesn't mean the alignment is OK.

But if you have heel and toe wear, the first place to look is at the alignment.

 

[yonyon]

Originally Posted By: CapriRacer

HOWEVER, tire wear is so complex that it is possible NOT to get heel and toe wear. That wear pattern can be worn off by other things that cause tire wear.


When I brought up the heel and toe wear thing I meant severe heel toe wear. I always like to read what you've got to say on tire related matters, what with you being an actual expert on these things. Most of what I 'know' about tires is just what I've picked up over the years from wrenching so there's no doubt I have a few misconceptions.

So do you know of any ways he might be able to wear the tire to lose the noise? Would a couple of good smokey burnouts help at all?

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: yonyon
When I brought up the heel and toe wear thing I meant severe heel toe wear. I always like to read what you've got to say on tire related matters, what with you being an actual expert on these things. Most of what I 'know' about tires is just what I've picked up over the years from wrenching so there's no doubt I have a few misconceptions.

So do you know of any ways he might be able to wear the tire to lose the noise? Would a couple of good smokey burnouts help at all?


There's a dilemma here: The alignment needs to be checked - and my best guess is that the toe will be off. Once that is fixed, then the rate of heel and toe wear will decrease - making it harder to wear a different wear pattern into the tire.

Frankly, I'd leave it alone and put up with the noise until it is time to rotate the tires - and based on the OP, this is not a likely scenario.

Of course, the real problem may be that the tires were on the rear too long and developed irregular wear and our OP has picked up on that yet.

In the end, the noise is likely to go away as time goes on simply because the tire is in a different position.