I have some Falken Azenis Sport tires and they have 'inside' and 'outside' printed on them, so it's obvious which way to mount them on the wheels...However, they are assymetrical, so the tread goes one way on one side of the car and the opposite on the other...WTF is up with this? It seems that this would give one side of the car better traction (atleast in wet conditions) than the other.

Here's a 3d animation http://www.falkentire.com/tires/az_rs_3d_vid.htm

Comments?

 

they are not meant for wet conditions......you can look at this way...but you are correct in saying the pattern only goes one way.....call falken and ask them...

 

Well, actually, they are meant for wet conditions, since they are DOT approved. However, yes, they are not designed to accel in these conditions.

I'm just wondering because there are unidirectional tires and asymmetrical unidirectional tires, but I didn't know, until buying these, that there were bidirectional asymmetrical tires!

 

The Azenis Sport asymmetrical tread pattern was designed for maximum dry weather performance. AZENIS RT-215

i believe the key word here is dry!!

 

you can run azenis in the rain, just learn how to drive with them in the rain, hence control.

 

i thought you could buy them like the BFG G-force tires, in both left and right tires?

 

The tires aren't water-based, so it's not like they'll melt in the rain

In any case, this wasn't what I was asking. Sobe_Death gets my vibe...however, I went to an autocross event today and looked at about 6 different cars with Azenis Sport tires and they all had the tread going one way on the right-side and the other way on the left! I just find this weird, but apparently this is the way it is (I didn't get ripped-off with 4 tires for one side!).

 

who cares about the rain?

i thought they would be grooved differently also, but now i guess there not. it seems like they should make 2 of them have tread lines going down and right, and the other 2 have tread lines going down to the left?

 

i always thought they did? are the Azenis directional? and would it matter if you flipped them around so that the outside tread blocks are on the outside on both sides?