Lancia Motor Club

I have just bought a set of tyres for my Sport.

I was temped by the special offer on Cinturato's recently featured on here but in the end opted for a set of Uniroyals as advertised on ebay for £150 plus fitting rather than the £400 that the Cints would have cost.They are described as having an asymmetricaltread pattern giving excellent water dispersion in wet conditions and are branded as RAINEXPERT 3.Also they are 175/80 section so slightly wider than the original spec.

Having fitted them however I am not happy about the asymmetric aspect as it specifies on the tyres which side faces outwards which results in the rotation direction being correct for the nearside ones but in my eyes incorrect for the offside.
In the photo the tyres roll towards the viewer when fitted so that the angled grooves on the right tyre (marked with tippex arrow) squeeze the water away to the right, away from the contact patch, whereas the same grooves on the left hand tyre must surely pump the water into the centre of the contact!

The fitter who installed them assures me that this is common for asymetric treads but I cannot accept that this is right.

Can anybody shed any light on this.

It seems to me that the tyre treads on one side of the car should be a mirror image of those on the other side. Hence there needs to be a left and a right hand version with the rotation direction marked on them.

Ben

Agree with your logic so checked what Uniroyal have to say about their tyres.......

http://www.uniroyal-tyres.com/www/uniroyal_tyres_gb_en/themes/summer-tyres/fd_rainsport-3/rainsport-3.html

......interesting!!

I seem to think I fitted these Uniroyal tyres recently to my Delta 1.6 GTie in France but not there so cannot check.... I have liked Uniroyal rain experts in the past and they were bought this time based on past experience and economic grounds...

Ben - I didn't realise you had a Flavia Sport - any chance of a photo?

Think it is posted under Flavia rather than Fulvia?? Must mean Ben is nearly there with his Fulvia if he is buying tyres!!

That Uniroyal web site is pretty definitive that these are not directional tyres and the angled grooves must be towards the outside of the car regardless of whether those grooves end up angled with or against the direction of rotation. I agree it seems counter intuitive, even rather disturbing, but they designed them.

Frank T

Thanks for your comments on my tyres.
As Tim has deduced I have posted under Flavia by mistake.The car in question is a Fulvia Sport.
Incidentally regarding the width issue the tyres I took off were 185x70. I don't think one needs to worry about putting 175's on the standard 4.5" rims.
The wet grip rating is a "B". However the more I think about it the more the Uniroyal blurb seems flawed.If the big deep angled grooves are optimized for grip they surely will not still be optimized when the tyre is rotated in the opposite direction.
If my interpretation of how the grooves work is correct I should find that the car grips the (wet) road much better on right hand bends than on left hand ones.
I look forward to finding out---maybe in the next month or so if I run it without any trim!
Ben

Hi Folks, for the future and keeping things in order I've moved into the correct Board :)

I think your cat's pregnant...

I have just ordered a set of Michelin winter tyres and wheels for my Yeti and will be interested to see if they are all fitted the same way round!
Regards, John

my dunlop winter tyres fitted to a spare set of wheels for my Gamma are sided......