I got a question. I just bought a set of these tires used from a guy at craigslist.com:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....Potenza+RE-01R

They all seem to have the same tread pattern, but if you look closely at the pattern, the left and right tread are offset a little. Come sense (if I can call it that way ) tells me that if the tread pattern is offset, then the left and right tire should have mirror image pattern? Or does it matter?
Or all these tires all come from the same mold and they are all the same?

 

what

 

Please elaborate.

 

 

They are unidirectional, you have to mount them the right direction. There is and arrow on the sidewall with the word rotation on it. Mount it so that the arrow will always point forward when the car is rolling forward.

 

I know they are unidirectional. What I was refering is the groove of the tread pattern on both sides of the tires. If you look at the side pattern, they have a little bit of offset. That's why I am asking if those side tread pattern come in with mirror image for left and right side.

 

Are you asking whether there are "left" and "right" tires?
I think what you are referring to is whether they are directional asymmetric or directional symmetric... they should have inside/outside marked...
I believe the only time it really makes much difference is when rotating the tires or if you damage one or something like that...

 

per the link you provided, i see what you mean...even if they are uni-directional, the tread patterns don't have to be symmetrical at all.... as long as they do what they are designed to do, they can be offset or even different tread patterns altogether with respect to the center line groove or tread strip (if you could even call it that)....

i had uni-directional falken ziex 512 tires that i put on my toyota pickup and the patterns were the same but slight offset too.... just look at the goodyear F1 gsd-3's...