Directional means directional

Pentalab

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Last May, like an idiot, when removing the fall /winter nitto Motivo's I use for rain tires...... and then installing the Nitto-555's for May-Oct.... I reversed the pair of rear 285-40-18's. These are directional treads. Instead of water diverging, it instead converges towards the center....bad news in the wet. Hardly any rain this summer..so no big deal. However the handling is screwed up. (Fronts are 275-40-18's..and installed correctly.) You wouldn't think having just the rears swapped side to side would muck up the handling...but it does. It would pull to the left at the top end of 2nd gear every time. It wouldn't stay straight with the blower on. It didn't feel right on corner's either. I thought for sure the suspension was binding up somewhere or the uca differential bushing was trashed. (bushing is fine).

Just swapped the rears back to normal today...and a big difference... various issues vanished. I won't make that mistake again.
 

dark steed

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Nitro 555's are awful when reversed. I'm running the same size (275) all around and Discount Tire cross-rotated the fronts when I got them rotated and balanced. It was suddenly squirrelly all over the road.
I didn't know the rear would affect it that much though!
 

01yellerCobra

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Nitro 555's are awful when reversed. I'm running the same size (275) all around and Discount Tire cross-rotated the fronts when I got them rotated and balanced. It was suddenly squirrelly all over the road.
I didn't know the rear would affect it that much though!
One of the cars I bought had a front tire mounted backwards. It didn't seem too bad, but I had it turned around. I about did a 180 leaving the tire shop because suddenly the front end had grip.

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Pentalab

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Nitto NT-555's are clearly marked... "right" or..."left". They are also marked... "inside" and..."outside".

Right now, it's a night and day difference...now that its fixed. Damned dangerous b4 with em swapped side to side. Pull to the left, steer it out, back off on gas a bit, then pulls to the right. Straighten it out, slow down, then try again..with the same results. I was on the local hwy, and came up to a buddy at a red light. He also has a stang, NA ( I have a small M90 + LT's). He's a hardcore drag racer. Light turns green and off he goes, I clean his clock, barely, and just about put it into the concrete center barrier... twice..in the process. Lesson learned.

Dunno if the new NT-555 G2's are directional or not.
 

redfirepearlgt

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Good to know. Will keep this in mind. Running directional tires as well, but have fortunately not made that mistake swapping to MT Pro Radials and back to the 555 G2's at the track for the return drive home...........yet.
 

redfirepearlgt

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Yip, 555 g2's are directional, like the 555 and MT ET Street Radial Pro's. Clear marking on all three series.
 

fast Ed

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Interesting that you would notice that much difference running the tire opposite, in many cases the construction of the carcass is no different it's only the tread pattern for water evacuation. On my old Fox race car I would sometimes run the Bridgestone R-comps in reverse direction on the other side of the car so that I would have the most meat on the shoulders of the left side rubber ... at Mosport it has more right hand turns than left. Never had any issues doing that.


cheers
Ed
 

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