Are the original tires on a 2013 GS directional or can they be rotated side to side. Thanks for any help.

 

Look closely at the tires with a good strong light. Usually, if the tires are directional, there will be an arrow and words to that effect on the tire.

 

Thanks will do.

 

Just looked at tire, says "this side facing outward". If I rotated sides am I correct in thinking the side would still be outward?

 

are all your wheels the same size?

 

Yes but it will be rotating a different way. Make sure it's not a directional tire. The Goodyear's that came on my 2005 were not.

 

Front and rear tires are different size this would just be a side to side roatation. If tires are rotating in a different direction it would be like a normal rotation. I will find out tommorow, going for an oil change with my Corvette mechanic. Will post results.

 

To my thinking, an "outward" side has more to do with the writing on the side of the tire because if you think about it the tire on the passenger side of the car rotates clockwise when the car moves forward but the tire on the driver's side turns counter-clockwise. Therefore if the same sidewall was kept outward and the tire was moved from passenger to driver side it would rotate in the opposite direction. When the tire rotation is specified it keeps the tread pattern running correctly and if you mount the tire on the driver side the opposite sidewall is on the outside than if you mount the same tire on the passenger side. So if I haven't confused everyone, it seems to me that side outward is about the sidewall showing (not about tread direction) and specified tire rotation is more about tread direction ( and not about which sidewall is outward). IMO. As JimTN said, there is usually an arrow and the word rotation on a tire the needs to rotate in one direction. E.g., Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus tires have a rotation arrow and the tread is V shaped so they have to rotate in the same direction to have all the V's in the same direction. Other tires have tread that is different on the outside edge than on the inside edge so in this case the same sidewall must be outward to keep the tread correct and in this case rotation direction is not important.

Also, if you are thinking of rotating on the car (as opposed to the direction the tire rotates when driving) generally radial ply tires should not be rotated from side to side, but only from front to back....which you can not do on a Corvette because the front and back tires are a dieffenbachia size.

 

Why do you want to rotate them?

 

You CANNOT rotate GS tires. Fronts are different size to rears and each are directional - ie you cannot swap left to right.

 

I was just thinking the same thing, when you drive the car aren't the tires rotating?

 

From the owner's manual:

"The tires on your vehicle are different sizes front to rear. Due to this, the tires should not be rotated. Each tire and wheel should be used only in the position it is in."


Making sure your wheels are kept in alignment is the answer for this car.


lisa

 

The factory base tires on all C6's are symmetrical but directional- to switch sides, you should remount the tires so the direction of rotation does not change.

The factory Supercar tires on the Z51 and (I think) GS are asymmetrical but non-directional. You can simply switch the complete wheel/tire assembly to the other side and it will be properly oriented.
Of course, it's best to re-train the tire sensors to get accurate location info.

In the old days, we were told to never reverse the rotation of a radial tire, but all the tire shops I've asked say it's ok on modern radials.

 

Mmmm, not sure if that's totally correct. If the GS is an M6 with the MSRC option, they came equipped with the GY F1 Supercar Gen2s, which are position specific. Each tire is different: fronts are 275/35-18 and the rears are 325/30-19, with each side having a left and right tread design.

From Tire Rack: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....ar=Convertible

If the car wasn't equipped with MSRC, then these are listed as OE tires and would allow rotation side-to-side: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSe...&filterType=oe

 

That's why I said "I think" about the GS, a little voice in the back of my head was saying there were corner-specific tires on some model of the GS or Z06.

Thanks for filling in the blanks.

 

What would be the point of rotating the tires side to side? Are you trying to fix an uneven tire wear problem? Lots of alignment complaints about the tires wearing the inside edge faster than the outside edge - that is an alignment issue that should have been checked early on in the life of the tire, like the day they were installed, and then re-checked every year. If you are tying to balance the wear on the tire from inside/outside wear, you would have to unmount/remount/rebalance the tires to re-install them on the opposite sides of the car to wear the opposite side of the tire. Once again, the problem is corrected with a wheel alignment so you need to consider that being done too.

 

Some autocrossers have reported "feathering" the edges of the tread blocks in one direction only, despite proper alignment, so they flipped their PS2's side-to-side to slowly even that out.

Since the feathering was resulting from driving style and not an alignment problem, that might work.

 

Once a tire begins a wear pattern, it will continue with that pattern until you throw the tire away or it wears out. So if you install new tires and one of the front tires starts an abnormal pattern because of an alignment problem, having an alignment done fixes the cause but not the tire.

 

Thanks for all the good advice. I have decided not to rotate since the wear is even. I did have my GS aligned at 1000 miles, I now have 5000 miles. Hope I do better than 10000 miles.

 

What kind of tread do you have on them right now? Goodyears only start around 8-9/32ds. By 10k you'll want to get rid of them anyway as they start to howl like crazy around then.

For about $1400 you can get a set of Michelin Super Sports that can be rotated side to side, have around 30-40k miles wear (based on my tires have 16k and they are at 7/32ds right now, are not scared of rain/cold and are quieter. I have the factory GM alignment set right in the center also.