Ok, dumb question time. What happens whens a directional tire is mounted the wrong way?

Here's what happened. I bought two used tires & a friend mounted them on my rims & balanced them. After I got the rims home & mounted them on the car I realized one of the tires should have been mounted the other way. So, the passenger side rear is correct, and the driver side rear is wrong.

Obviously, this isn't optimal, but what harm will it cause? The care seems to drive ok & I don't really want to have it re-mounted.

 

Spend the few extra bucks and have it remounted. It can't cost harldy anything to justify the wear and potential lack of safety on the tire. It also won't act the same when it is wet out and could become quite dangerous.

 

The wear will be horrible compared to the correct direction. Like taking your treadwear rating and cutting it in half. Just one of those things that i had to find out the hard way...

 

Dumb question alert! What's so special about a directional tire anyway? Better balanced? Are the grooves cut differently, and they dig into the road instead of rest on top of it? Why should someone use it instead of a regular tire?

I'm not a low-profile fan so I never had to deal with this stuff...

Thanks!

 

My friend road races and instructs and he told me that having them on with the tread reversed isn't bad if it isn't wet or raining.
I asked him about this when I noticed his tread was backwards.

He flip flops his tires to get the most life out of them.

Most of you have probably seen his car, it was a white 4th gen camaro that was airborne above a bunch of tires at a track.

 

Hmm, my tires arn't low profile and they are directional.

 

Direction tires are used to evacuate water and debris from the center of the tire outwards, enhancing the contact of the tire to the road surface. Running a directional tire at speed backwards will do the opposite and push everything towards the center of the tire, which is not good.

 

Thanks for the info, Justin!!