It's winter, so I followed the good advice of switching to winter tires. Just want to confirm a few things...thank you for the time spent! really appreciated.

1. Front / Rear Size are different, is that true?
2. What happens if the front gets installed in the rear, and the rear gets installed in the front? The bodyshop did that ../__\ on the left side of the car, I just haven't had the time to go in and ask them to change it back. It drives fine though..
3. Do I need to do tire rotation? The tires are only 1 season and still very new. o.0


Thank you very much !!! I love this forum!!

 

1. yes
2. When that happened on my car, if I accelerated very briskly, the slip light would flash sometimes. It's a good idea to go ahead and get it corrected.
3. I think rotation is mainly based on mileage. Note that if you have directional tires, you can't rotate them (some winter tires are directional). I would rotate after 5,000 miles or so.

 

I thought you can't rotate your tires if your wheels/tires are staggered? That is why in the manual is says you cannot rotate tires if you have a coupe.

 

1. yes
2. get it fixed asap, they are staggered
3. no because they are staggered, if the tires are not directional then you can rotate it left to right if you want

 

Thanks a lot guys.. now I have some followup questions if you guys dont mind..

1. Take the example of front tries..does it matter which side you installed them on? What I mean is..on my winter tires I got from friend (used 1 season only), all it says is ' Front ' and ' Rear' . It doesn't say ' Left Front' ' Right Front'. What if the carshop just randomly put them on?


I am not sure if its all mental, but the car does shake a little bit more compared to all seasons.....

 

Which side the tires are on will not matter unless they are directional tires and are backwards. Most winter tires IIRC are NOT directional. Just make sure the rears are on the rears, fronts on the front wheels and that you have them balanced. Check to make sure there isn't an arrow on the side of the tires, that means they are directional.

 

We can't technically rotate your tires what you can do is have your tires swapped right to left on the rears, meaning put the inside on the outside without changing the direction of the tire, people that are cambered do this all the time.

 

shoot..i just found out something when I tried to do it myself in the garage. I didn't notice any of these since the winter tires came with the car when I bought them, and never paid attention until winter now.

1. My 4 tires are ALL the same size..lol... 225/60/16 I think.
2. They are directional, and both rear tires the treads on them are worn out? However, IF i was able to dismount the tires from the rimms and reverse it, the treads are almost brand new.

My questions now are:

1. Is it a big deal the 4 winter tires are all the same? The previous owner seemed to have no problem with it... I think I may just leave it?
2. Since the rear directional tires are worn out, I need to 'reverse' the tires from the rims to wear out the newer tread in opposite direction. Can I just install the left rear tire to the right side, even though the direction on the side of tire is opposite, I will be able to drive with the newer treads?

It sounds confusing...hopefully somebody can help =) thanks again!

 

First... I think you should list what car you have; model, year, option specs, etc.
Also, are these wheels you have aftermarket or are they OEM? I don't think and G came with 16" wheels.

Generally speaking:
1) You can run all the same size tires on all four corners (OEM staggard setup). It's not ideal, but it can be done without issue.
2) Directional tires can only be used in that one direction, you should not roll them "backwards" by putting them on the other side. Unless you pull them off the wheel and put them on the other wheel, then flip them to the other side, in which case, they'll be rolling in the right direction. This puts the original inside on the outside and vice versa. And when you say "worn out" do you mean camber wear = the inside of the tire is more worn than the outside?

If you have a pair that are worn, you should get them replaced. They'll prove useless in the snow if they're worn. Generally, after 50%, you should think about replacing your winter tires.

 

Hello Money, thanks for the reply.
It is a 2004 G35 Coupe, and I have directional tires on them.. after a fair bit of research I realize directional tires can only be rotated front to back so I had just done that.

When I say worn, i meant the tread on the tires have these tiny spiky rough surfaces in one direction. If you move your finger on a piece of tread one way, its very rough, and if you move it in opposite direction, its not rough.

They look like this on my FRONT directional
<
< <
< <
<

Which I thought makes perfect sense, since the wheeels spin front to back when they move, the direction of those rough surfaces will grab onto snow and the road.

My REAR directional tires however, the rough surface faces backward !!

like this:
>
> >
> >
>
>

This is the part that confuses the heck out of me. When I am driving my wheels are spinning in opposite direction, then how am I getting friction when those little spikies on the tread is in the other way !! That's why I thought maybe it was worn out.. ?

My question now is.. is the difference in pattern normal? o.0 Maybe I am paranoid, I just drove over a little puddle of snow and the wheels sounded like they were going to lock. This is after I swapped front for the back, vice versa.. -_-.

Please educate me fellas!!

 

Here is more info for those who wish to give me some insight:

This is the tires on my g right now !!

http://www.toyotires.ca/index.php?q=...erve-g-02-plus

It doesn't say its directional on their website.. but on the tires they do show Arrows and ' left ' and ' right ' .. so I assume they are ATM.

The little rough spikey surface is what they call ' tire wave siping' .. I just thought they should all be pointing to the direction of the car front. My question was on the rear tire..both left and right sizes..the siping are are facing backwards... thanks!

 

I'm still confused by your "little rough spikey surface" In any case, for directional tires, you look for the arrows, and as long are your arrows are pointed in the right direction, you should be good. Now, if I understand you correctly, all four tires match. Therefore, the best thing to do is look at your fronts, and have them rear go in the same direction as the fronts. Or viceversa, which ever the arrows are pointing (the arrow at the highest position, closest to the fender, arrow should be pointing forwards, towards the front of the car). Not sure why a tire would have "left" and "right" on them. I've seen "inside" and "outside" before.

 

sorry money. By spikey surfaces, I meant SIPINGs. Those tires were manufactured to have them. I thought sipings increase traction by having more area hang onto snow/ice whatsoever.

I am just so puzzled how can same size tires (no front/rear difference), same side (both tires say 'left' on them), have sipings that appear to work in 2 different directions..

For example, my front left wheel will have deep siping that can easily be felt by rubbing your finger against it, and the siping pattern raises slightly above the tread block.

My rear left wheel will also have siping, but they are raised in the opposite direction of the front tire!! i.e , you'd need to run your finger backwards to feel the spikiness on these siping.

Just so confusing :S

 

I HAVE A QUESTION THAT NEEDS ANSWERING AND I DONT HAVE HOURS TO SEARCH THIS SITE TO FIND IT CAN U PLZ ANSWER? About 6months ago I purchased some Yokohama advan sport tires for my oem 19s, and i was wondering about tire rotation (since the tires are about $1500 a set and want to get the most out of em). I consulted my G35 owners manual and the first thing I see is Sedan: every 7200 miles.... but i dnt have a sedan.... soooo i read alil more and see coupe: can not rotate tires ...... now im like wtf? Is this true? or can I? and if so what rotation pattern do you recommend? thanx

 

You cannot rotate OEM coupe tires, in the traditional sense. Reason being, the front and rear tires are different sizes (referred to as "staggered"). Traditionally, when it comes time to rotate the tires, one would take the rear tires and put them up front, sometimes doing a flip in the process. A RWD car will wear down the rear tires faster and FWD will wear out the front tires faster. So rotating them helps even out the wear. But since the G coupe has a staggered setup, the rear and front wheels/tires are not interchangeable.