A mate of mine brought his wifes car round to mine last night (V reg Honda Civic estate) as she had been complaining that the rear end felt loose.

I jacked up the passenger left rear and took the wheel off, I noticed right away that the directional tread was on the wrong way! Imagine the 'V's' on the tyre, they were pointing to the back of the car.....I told him I was sure this was the issue, so we swapped the fronts (new) to the rear and put the rears on the front, making sure they were rotating as designed......

Any thoughts? Am I right?

Cheers,

Dan

I've never experienced directional tyres being on backwards, but my understanding of the design was that it's done to increase the amount of standing water a given tread depth and land ratio can pump per unit time compared with a non-directional tyre with the same characteristics. Unless it's been wet where you are, or that make of tyres also have a unidirectional construction, I'd suspect that the directionals are fundamentally less grippy than the non-directionals on that car (esp if the nondirectionals are also asymmetric).

I've never experienced directional tyres being on backwards, but my understanding of the design was that it's done to increase the amount of standing water a given tread depth and land ratio can pump per unit time compared with a non-directional tyre with the same characteristics. Unless it's been wet where you are, or that make of tyres also have a unidirectional construction, I'd suspect that the directionals are fundamentally less grippy than the non-directionals on that car (esp if the nondirectionals are also asymmetric).

Directionals are far far better in the wet provided they are on the right way round (V pointing forwards on the top of the tyre). If they are on backwards they are lethal in the wet as they actually trap water under the tyre rather than getting rid of it...

It is very wet, slushy and snowy up here

If it is a directional tyre , there will be an arrow on the side of the tyre, this should face the way of forward rotation