Tire Direction

yoyo

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I picked up my rear wheel after my local bike garage fitted a new Bridgestone A41 but I'm sure his fitted it the wrong way around, I'm guessing the arrow on the side shows the direction of rotation? I've attached a couple of pics.

The first one shows the arrow and the brake disc, the second shows the tread pattern with the wheel roughly in place.

Just to make matters worse the tire fitter is on holiday for the rest of the week!

Can anyone confirm for me please? Thanks


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yoyo

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Thanks for the quick reply, what I expected but not what I wanted to hear!

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Thrasherg

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As stated, they have put it on backwards!! It probably wont do any harm to use it for a week, but you should get it turned around as soon as the guy gets back from vacation, just be aware it might slide/aquaplane a bit easier due to the tread pattern being in the wrong direction.

Gary
 

yoyo

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I've spoken to him and it'll be sorted tomorrow, not sure what he's going to do, more than likely take it somewhere else and pay to have it done. I could have waited until his guy is back but I tutor advanced riding and have a training day on Saturday. Thanks again for the quick replies.
 

AdvToorer

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I also do my own wheel removal and deliver wheels to shop when having tires installed. I usually tape something to wheel to indicate forward rotation just to make it easy on the installers.
 

Longdog Cymru

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Yeah, as has already been said, the tyre has been fitted incorrectly...... I was just wondering where you took it to have the tyre changed as I am in Swansea too and I would like to know where to avoid in in future!
 

Jlq1969

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It's funny, but Bridgestone, could have put "rear use only” on another side, it puts it just above the directional arrow, it seems obvious, but it gives rise to interpretations:):)
88239451-A8ED-4748-A5EB-8E5E6BB8285D.jpeg
FA3892B0-B791-4F20-BD45-1F1B02CE6461.jpeg
 
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SilverBullet

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It's funny, but Bridgestone, could have put "rear use only” on another side, it puts it just above the directional arrow, it seems obvious, but it gives rise to interpretations...
I don't know what other interpretation you could get from that. An arrow on a tire is always direction of rotation.

Also some tires are bi-directional. The other side could say "Front Tire Only" and the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.



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OldRider

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Because the shop doesn't know which side the rotor is on? :eek: Time for a new shop.
You're being a little hard on them. There are hundreds and hundreds of different wheels out there. Some have the disc on the right and some have it on the left. No mechanic can identify every wheel just by looking at it. Most, but not all rims and or disc will have a directional arrow on them.

Harley wheels are a good example. Sportsters have the disc on the left and the big twins have the disc on the right. The wheels look the same. When a customer packs a wheel in the first thing I do is look at the tire before I take it off and mark the direction on the disc.

Even being as careful as I can I still manage to look at a tire, flip it around putting on tire lube and get my wires crossed and slip it on backwards. I always double check it when I put it in the balancer and the one or two times a year I manage to screw one up, gets me pissed off for the rest of the day.
 

Jlq1969

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I don't know what other interpretation you could get from that. An arrow on a tire is always direction of rotation.

Also some tires are bi-directional. The other side could say "Front Tire Only" and the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.



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you interpret well, I interpret well, many others interpret well, but not all interpret well. that's why the "obvious, without a doubt" is the best. I can cite other cases of interpretation, related to the S10 as it is the owner's manual translated from English to Spanish, where they convert gallon to liters, but what gallon? American / international? (3.78 liters) or imperial gallon? (4.54 liters) and so you can see that user manuals translated into Spanish you find with a oil 4D9FF751-2387-47D4-A752-B3941CB438E7.jpeg28EF7E9D-2120-481F-9729-04C49890AD28.pngcapacity of 4.2 liters. There are other more serious examples of interpretation (especially in aviation) of confusing lbs with kg of fuel, but they are irrelevant
 

yoyo

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In the tire fitter's defence he had just fitted a rear Honda tire which had the disc on the other side.

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Sierra1

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You're being a little hard on them. There are hundreds and hundreds of different wheels out there....
You might be right....but....even my amateur ass would ask if I didn't know. And, I was "ass-uming", it was a Yamaha shop.
 
R

RonH

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I believe most the time for the directional arrow is for design in wear, so better wear, less cupping ect. I doubt any immediate hazzard from running backward, but good to run forward as a rule. I run a GL1800 front 5,000 miles, then swap it backwards for 5,000. Get better tire wear and no cupping that way.
 

Checkswrecks

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If you mount enough tires. Shit happens.
No shit. ;) I've had to uninstall and re-mount tires I put on backward, more than once. My rims have a painted arrow by the fill valve.

Engineering of tires is truly a black art and there are tires you intentionally mount backwards if they can fit both a front and rear wheel. The arrow is reversed on the front because max force on the tread is exerted during braking. Not something to worry about on our bikes.

Mounting a tire backward can have two negative impacts. As Thrasherg wrote, the grooves (sipes) are oriented for the tire to shed water and prevent hydroplaning. An important function in wet weather. You can experience the same thing with some dirt bike tires.

The second has to do with overlap of the fabric plies inside. This issue is magnified in radial tires with steel belts, which is common in car and truck tires but also done for some m/c tires. (I was looking at a delaminated truck tire just yesterday that had resulted in fatalities.) Installed properly, the plies and belts pull into each other under power for the back and braking for the front. A reversed tire can have ply separation under hot conditions, with an under-inflated tire, &/or with a heavy load.

If you do a search about tread delaminaiton, you'll find that the ambulance chasing attorneys have a bunch of web-sites on the subject. There's a mixture of fact and bull so take those sites with a big grain of salt and discernment.

As colleagues with one of the big tire manufacturers likes to keep saying, tires are like real estate in that you need to keep three things in mind:
Inflation
Inflation, and
(you guessed it)
Inflation
 

WJBertrand

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I believe most the time for the directional arrow is for design in wear, so better wear, less cupping ect. I doubt any immediate hazard from running backward, but good to run forward as a rule. I run a GL1800 front 5,000 miles, then swap it backwards for 5,000. Get better tire wear and no cupping that way.
Another important aspect is the clearing of water from the tread when riding in wet weather. A reversed tread direction may cause the water to clear less efficiently and possibly result it reduced traction. This depends a lot on the tread design. I think there are some designs that are probably less sensitive to this than others.
 
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