So I had a nail hole patched at the dealer. I marked the tire because of my own paranoia that they would give me back another tire. I did get my tire back, patched and holding air, but noticed the inside is now out, therefore, it rolls in an opposite direction. The tires are not directional, but Toyota does not recommend rotating tires from side to side and thus changing direction. What to do? Is this a problem?
What brand / model tires are you running? Since the tires are not directional, you shouldn't have any problem.
If you don't notice unusual tire noise or vibration, then no, this is not a problem. BTW, despite the owner's manual recommendation to rotate only from front to rear and reverse, I have no problem moving non-directional tires from side to side if that will help to even out tread wear.
It seems like if you can actually feel the difference, without saying the tires aren't misaligned, then there may be something wrong with the balancing or tires. I really dont know though. I assume the inversion is common among tire rotations. I would just give them a call and find out.
I had thought that the issue of changing rolling direction was entirely up to the tire maker, not the car maker. In which case the car maker may not want to confuse customers by suggesting too many choices, because some customers would end up getting unidirectional tires, then rotating them across the car 'because the car manual says so'.
Decades ago, I read that the life of steel-belted radial tires would be adversely affected by changing the direction of rotation. I don't know whether this was ever really true or if anything has changed in steel-belt technology, but I stopped diagonal rotation because of this claim. I would be delighted to have the flexibility of diagonal rotation again if reversing the direction of rotation does not cause problems. I hope some tire guru's will see this thread and provide informed info/opinions on this issue.
Thank you for your input. I'm not going to get overly excited and phone the dealer Monday. BTW, the tires are the stock tires and have been wearing evenly (15K miles).
I'm not a tire guru. But I also didn't rotate diagonally for a while due to that same oft-repeated claim you read. Then after reading the warranty on a set of new tires indicating that diagonal rotation was acceptable, I want back to that pattern . Except, of course, on a newer set specifically marked as unidirectional. The short answer -- read the tires manufacturer's product information.
Modern radial tires are directional due to tread only. It has nothing to do with the belts. Early radials had problems, and they blamed it on cross rotation. I think it was more likely due to not knowing how to make them properly rather than cross rotation. It was my understanding the Goodyear Integrity tire is directional, but I could have been miss-informed. If it is directional, and knowing that the car -may- get other tires on short notice during manufacturing, some which could be directional, it is understandable that Toyota would tell owners not to cross rotate. Pearl wears Nokian WR tires, which are directional (with a large arrow on the sidewall informing any who look of that fact). They will not explode or be damaged if they are run "backwards". You will have poorer traction. That's all.
Interesting discussion here. I cross rotate based on data from Tire Rack website. Our '08 has the orig Goodyr Integrity tires. As Patrick noted, these are not unidirectional. Since new, I have rotated them myself every 5k. When I bring the rear ones to the front, I cross them, meaning LR goes to RF and RR goes to LF. Front tires going to the back are not crossed. Pressure is consistently maintained at 35 front/33 rear. We now have 35,850 mi on these tires and all have from 4/32 to 5/32 tread at this time. I've never encountered any problems with tread separation, etc. We did one rebalance at 20k.
