Hey guys. So i was lookin on tirerack and other tire online shops but i cant find any tires that are unidirectional. Does anyone know of any unidirectional tires?

 

Most of the performance tires for our cars are unidirectional. As a matter of fact, it's hard to find tires that are not.

 

The oem RE050s are directional.

 

Check out the Nitto Invos. They are non-directional.

 

Directional tires were invented to increase wear and make it harder to rotate so that manufacturers could sell more tires more frequently. In the beginning 1990's directional tires were produced as wet racing tires because the racing slicks didn't perform well in wet conditions...................somehow the was morphed by PR/Sales department into a good thing in dry conditions where slicks are superior.

Nice to see engineers winning again over sales such that Michelins PS2 are not directional.

A few years back Tire rack tested directional ties mounted backwards and found they were better in some conditions. This report was quickly removed under pressure from tire manufacturers.

A good view on subject is to look at the 50 mph WET panic stopping distances [and wet slalom] with various types of tires.

The bad thing is any directional improvement goes away fast as tread wears down so that 1/2 worn directionals are usually WORSE than 1/2 worn non directionals.

 

unidirectional...do you mean only roates one way as in directional? or do you mean it can be installed any direction so that you can swap left and right to rotate them. If you're looking for the latter those not too common. I just picked up some Sumitomo HTR Z III which are asymetrical (the tire has an outside edge and an inside edge) so it is not directional and can be swaped left to right to rotate.

 

But what would the advantage be if you swap left to right but had to keep the inside of the tire on the inside? ie.. most do this to combat inner tire wear from camber.

 

not much of an advantage but it's still rotating the tire to get the most life out of it. It would help with feathering which is the result of toe in. since the front and rear are different sizes you can't rotate front to back so only side to side. If you really want to do it right you would need to do a tire flip so that the inside is now the outside but that cost money.

 

u throw down a lot of info without any resources to back it up. might as well say a test using nike shox soles as tire treads resulted in no need for a suspension system in an automobile at all. Those results were then ordered to be destroyed by the senate when it revealed a ploy from nike to take over the world.

 

I always thought the reason for directional tires was to help wet conditions, the tread pattern pushes water away from the center to the outside to reduce hydroplaning. I find it hard to believe that they were invented to increase wear.

 

My front tires on my Coupe are symmetrical (nondirectional), so I am able to swap them from one side to the other without having to break, dismount and remount them. This has helped qutie a bit on keeping the front inside feathering to a minimum. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find symmetrical performance tires for our cars.

 

These days, quite often, unfortunately, we find built in obsolescence.

 

+1

I new a woman who had directionals installed backwards on her IS300 and her car was all of the sudden horrible in the rain. Not knowing anything about tires she took it back to the garage and they said the tech mounted them backward. They reversed them and the problem disappeared.

 

Directional tires performs better on wet condition.

 

"Directional tires performs better on wet condition. " WHEN BRAND NEW but this improvement goes away fast!