I replaced my winter tires with my summer tires on my BMW X5 last weekend. I’ve got Michelin Diamaris as my summer tires, which were the OEM tire when I purchased the X5, and I’ve replaced a couple of times since I bought the vehicle in 2002. While I was installing the wheels, I noticed that the tread didn’t look symmetric to me, which seems strange from a water traction point of view.
I went to the web site for the tires, http://www.michelinman.com/tire-selector/category/suv-crossover/latitude-diamaris/tire-details#pr-header-4536 and they don’t seem to have different tires for left and right in the part numbers. I downloaded the picture of the tire, and rotated it 180 degrees. Here’s what the left and right tires should look like side by side:
The tires have a specific pattern for the outside of the tire and the inside of the tire, but the inside portion has essentially half a V pattern to the center groove. Notice how the “V” in the inside portion of the tread would push water to the center of the tire on one side, while pushing it away from the center on the other.
In the past I’ve had tires that had a symmetric V pattern, and the direction of rotation was very important for wet traction. Staring at these looks counterintuitive to me.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Is my installation correct, or are these tires supposed to be delivered in a left-right pair?
WimsWorld 