What if...

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The front tires on my 16-month old 350Z with 14k mi are badly cupped on the inside and make loud humming noise at low speeds, worse when braking. They've been doing this since 5-6k mi, and it's been getting progressively worse. I was well aware of the front tire fethering issues on the 03-04 models, but figured it is fixed by now, so didn't bother to investigate earlir (Idiot!). Now the Stealership won't do anything for me since I'm out of the 12-month alligment warranty period. According to Nissan this condition is caused by excessive toe-out. Nissan extended the allignment warranty on the 03-04 models to 2 years, and swapped the front tires inside to outside. Some even got new tires, and later $230 or so from a Class action suit settlement. Dealers were required to re-calibrate their alignment machines to new specs. Long story short the problem was never solved, as many later models have the same issues.

Now, the factory Bridgestone Potenza RE050A on my Z are not directional, and assymetrical? as the outside wall clearly states "OUTSIDE". What if I swap them and put the inside cupped part of the tire on the outside in an attempt to even out some of the wear and get few more miles out of them, as Nissan did on the earlier symetrical tires? What's the worse what could happen? Loud noise?-Can't be louder that it allready is. Slippery when wet?-I don't it drive in rain, and drive like a grandma in general. A blow out?-That would be bad. Could they just come off/dismount?

Thx for any help, and sorry for long post
 
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I don't think any tire shop will mount the asymmetrical tires inside out. There isn't much you can do now other than buying new tires and do an alignment.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I don't think any tire shop will mount the asymmetrical tires inside out. There isn't much you can do now other than buying new tires and do an alignment.


Wrong. Tire shop guys will do anything for cash when the manager is no there.

I'll get an alignment withthe next set of new tires, but these have like 80% thread left.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
I don't think any tire shop will mount the asymmetrical tires inside out. There isn't much you can do now other than buying new tires and do an alignment.


I have seen directional tires mounted inside out. Not on purpose, but because the person mounting them didn't have a clue.
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If the factory alignment is the problem, has anyone found a better alignment solution? Maybe you should get new tires and come up with your own alignment and monitor the tread wear.
 
I wouldn't mount directional tires "inside out". I'm assuming that if it was OK to do so, they wouldn't go to all the trouble of indicating which direction they out to be spinning.

What's the big deal? Get an alignment and new tires. A couple of adages come to mind. "You've got to pay to play" and "Better safe than sorry".
 
The big deal is that the car came misaligned from the factory, and Nissan doesn't stand behind their product. If they would have offered me a free alignment I would have been happy.

From my research, this is an on-going problem on most Z cars, and reocurrs even after new tires/alignment. I can get tires mounted/balance for free, and sometimes can get free aligmnent at a reuptable newer local shop. I have 6 Nissans in my family, and this is the last one. Didn't even bother to call Nissan USA, don't want to deal with morons that can't figure out a front suspension on rear wheel drive vehicle, or even build a reliable manual transmission for the same in the 21st Century (the 6-spd manual in the 350/370Z is on it's 9th redesign, and there are still issues with bad syncros, throw out bearings, sleeve cilinders- on well maintained, not abused cars ...).
 
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Originally Posted By: vlado11
The big deal is that the car came misaligned from the factory, and Nissan doesn't stand behind their product. If they would have offered me a free alignment I would have been happy.

From my research, this is an on-going problem on most Z cars, and reocurrs even after new tires/alignment. I can get tires mounted/balance for free, and sometimes can get free aligmnent at a reuptable newer local shop. I have 6 Nissans in my family, and this is the last one. Didn't even bother to call Nissan USA, don't want to deal with morons that can't figure out a front suspension on rear wheel drive vehicle, or even build a reliable manual transmission for the same in the 21st Century (the 6-spd manual in the 350/370Z is on it's 9th redesign, and there are still issues with bad syncros, throw out bearings, sleeve cilinders- on well maintained, not abused cars ...).


OK, so you got hoodwinked by Nissan. No need to pile on by potentially making it unsafe to drive.
 
Tires were designed to be omnidirectional in order to present the least rolling resistance and thus save fuel. But I don't see any practical reason why I can't use them in the opposite rolling direction. They are not going to blow up and disintegrate. If it were my car, I would have a realignment and try the very same thing you're intending to do.
 
A couple of thoughts:

Rolling resistance is not affected by whether or not a tire is directional. Nor is it affected by asymetrical aspects.

A 350Z is a high performance car. Tire wear is sacrificed to get the good handling. Nissan (and a lot of other vehicle manufacturers) dial in a lot of camber in order to get the good handling - and that causes uneven wear. They also select grippy tires, which are not long wearing. So there are 2 choices: Sacrifice the handling by using less camber, or put up with the wear.
 
You can mount asymetrical tires inside out, I do it all the time with old R-comps but it isn't ideal. The stiff sidewall is now on the inside and the soft sidewall is on the outside. You'll find the stiff sidewall on the inside wears the inside tread fast, and in really hard cornering the outer soft sidewall will "crumple' and feel rough.
Anyways if you do drive like a grandma you'll get more miles out of them.
 
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