I have a question about the stock tires on my 02 Z06.

Is there anything wrong with swapping around the front two tires, or the back two?

I have an extra set of used tires sitting around, and am going to put them back on my car. Since the tread doesn't really wear evenly usually on these cars, I was thinking of putting the lefts on where the rights were and vice versa when I remount them, kind of a pseudo-rotation I guess. I don't think it would hurt anything, but just checking.

Thanks.

 

I swap my fronts from side to side on occasion.

 

A lot of theses tires are directional and should not be swapped side to side.

 

Operative word is can't.

 

These are stock Z06 F1s. As far as I know these are not directional.

 

Yes, you can Swap the Front Tires from one side to Another.. Same with the Rear. This is only for the Stock F1 Supercars.. Others Apply but I don't want to give any Bad info.

 

Only on bi-directional tires, on some tires that are one way only (there is an arrow on the outside wall indicating what direction it should rotate) they can not. I play it safe, I don't rotate on my C5. I leave them as they are, buy new pairs or all new sets when worn. My logic, again MY LOGIC only, my C5 is my weekend warrior, get away vacation trips and Friday and Saturday night drive, not daily driver. So my tires goe a long time before getting worn out. When you get old like me, you drive just a tad slower (NOT THAT OLD OK), so you play hard, you pay hard, you play soft, you pay soft.... I don't have to prove anything to other drivers. Why, IT's a vette the best on the road by my standards.

 

My tire shop recommends rotation from side to side. The directional tires will be removed and then re-mounted from one rim to the other to ensure proper direction. You obviously cant just do a normal swap from one side to the other without re-mounting the tires.

 

I just bought two new Sumitomo HTR ZIII tires for the rear of my 1998 C-5, and noticed that the treads were not symetrically mounted, that is, directional. It looked to me that the tire shop just mounted two left (or two right) tires, with the word "outside" showing on the outside of each time when bolted to the car. I sent an email to Sumitomo Tire asking if this was a problem or an incorrect mounting, and here is the reply:

"Thanks for your interest in our tires. The short answer to your question is no. Your question makes sense, and this isn't the first time we've heard it. HTR ZIII has an asymmetric pattern that appears to have a directional characteristic. However, the benefits of being able to rotate the tires far outweigh any marginal performance gain that might come from offering left and right side versions. There's more than ample drainage on both sides of car, and the tread compound has excellent wet traction capability.

From a manufacturing standpoint, it's a nightmare to build and stock asymmetric, directional tires, as they are position specific, i.e.
RF/LF/RR/LR. Only at the extreme limit would there be any performance advantage.

Thanks again for considering Sumitomo."

Straight from the horse's mouth. Hope this helps you as it helped me. By the way, the tires were only $179 each (as opposed to over $400), are not run-flats (that's what AAA is for), and perform very well. Happy driving, and enjoy your Corvette.