Hello,

I have now had a set of Kumho AST's for about 10K miles on my 01 GLE.

The car has about 149K on her now and all set to hit 150.

I bought the car with 134K. When I bought the car, it desperately needed tires so I got the Kumhos. They are directional tires.

Since then, I have done the following:
- New springs - H&R
- New struts - Illumina
- New Lower control arms
- New inner and outer tie rods

In the interim i started noticing a slight vibration in the car. It was interesting as road force balacing greatly helped the vibration but did not take it away totally.

Recently, I had a similar issue with my 01 330ci and my local shop basically flipped the tires right to left umounting and re-mounting the tires on the opposite side.

I have been told my maxima has cupping on the tires. This may have been due to the fact that the rear shocks on the car were completely worn out and probably messed up the then new tires when we did a 1500 mile trip to KY from FL.

This evening I basically interchanged the rear tires L-R so now my front tires are actually turning in the right directional pattern but the rear are not.

However, by doing this and after a short drive on the interstate, I notice my vibration has almost disappeared.

I am certain my issue is with my tires.

My question is, i know the tires still have some life on it.

Would it be ok for me to drive the car with the tires turning in the opposite direction? or, is there anything else i can do?

 

Did you get the alignment adjusted after those suspension upgrades/repairs? It is a necessity after those parts are replaced.

Don't run those directional tires backwards. The tread channels water/mud/snow out to the sides, evacuating it away so the tire hits pavement. Rolling them backwards will pull it all toward the center of the contact patch, where it has no place to go but between the tire and the road, causing the tire to lift. Could be very dangerous.

 

its ok as long as the weather is dry

tire tread is there to drive water away from the tire so that it gets to grip the road. directional tires in reversed position would draw water towards the center of the tire and you will be guaranteed to hydroplane and loose your back end.

Good organized post btw,. thats how its done...

 

Thank you for the responses

Yes, as soon as I got the new tires I did get an alignment. However, to my luck i had severely worn out shocks. Once i switched to illuminas i also had the bad luck of blowing both my rear shocks and the ran ran about 250-300 miles on those so i am sure the tires got the uneven wear pattern.

This morning, I just found out that Walmart charges only $3 to mount tires.

I called up as asked what they would charge to basically flip the right tire to the left and vice versa. The response was $20.

I understand from your responses that running tires backward in wet weather may not be good so I am going to do this side to side flip to see if that helps in any way.

I will keep you folks updated

p.s. note to self... maxima is a passenger car. next time by regular non-directional tires.