I looked into getting directional tires and this is what I was told from the
tire shop. The tires are designed to roll one way only, which as mentioned,
aid in water movement correctly. Similar to a lint brush, rub your hand on
it one way and its smooth, rub back the other way and rough. You roll
directional tires the wrong way and you'll tear up the tires in a hurry;
i.e. going against the grain. They'll get nowhere near the true expected
life.

Keith




"y_p_w" <y_p_w@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:591da479.0407090903.8e210d0@posting.google.co m...
> I was stuck in rush hour traffic a few days ago, so I started
> looking around. I was looking around, and saw a familiar
> tire - a Yokohama AVS ES100 on the rear of a Civic. I
> had that particular tire on my Integra before it was stolen.
> The car was recovered, but the wheels weren't. In fact, the
> thieves were **ahem** "nice enough" to replace them with bald
> tires on steel wheels.
>
> The strange thing I noticed since were were stopped at times
> was that the rear tire I saw was oriented backwards. These
> are directional tires, and the "chevron" should be pointed
> forward at the top. I thought about telling the guy, but we
> weren't stopped long enough. I'm not sure if they were mounted
> that way (intentionally?) or perhaps rotated that way.
>
> So what's the worst that could happen. My guess is that it
> might not wear as well. Could there be possible safety problems?