Installing tires “backwards”

[asetoftools]

A mechanic I was chatting with mentioned that you shouldn’t rotate your tires so that some are going backwards to what they were before. So what i mean is that you can move passenger front to passenger rear, but not passenger front to driver rear, or driver front. And the reason he gave is that inside the tire will degrade quicker, something about the bands inside seperating when its driven the opposite direction. He said thats why he never recomends people buy used tires because who knows what direction they were “used the most” in.

Does this make any sense? usually i trust this person. However i have done all kinds of tire rotations on my vehicles, and unless they are specifically directional tires, I didnt think it mattered the wheel you rotated them to. Infact if you read the internet, people use a cross type pattern all the time and it is sometimes even recommended. I purchased some used tires in my life and they never fell apart on me, not one time.

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[Greg]

30 years ago when radial tires were a new technology that was the case. That problem has been fixed over the years.

[Dave]

Your mechanic friend is totally wrong here, the tires do not care where they are on a car or which way they are going (except for directional and asymetrical tires). The rotation patterns are meant to maximize tire life.

http://www.tirebuyer.com/education/tire-rotation-patterns

[asetoftools]

Thanks. i got one more question but ill ask it in a different thread.

[Author]

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