Rotating Tires with Directional Wheels

[Skotty]

Some cars have directional wheels. Not directional tires. That's a different discussion. Directional wheels. Which is largely just visual. Does the shape cut forward or backward? Depending on wheel design, I suppose it's possible because of aerodynamics or some other reason a specific wheel might need to only cut one direction. But I would assume in most cases it is just visual.

If it's just visual, you can do a typical crossing pattern during a wheel rotation (sort of a figure eight, like front right to rear right, rear right to front left, front left to rear left, and rear left to front right). But if you have visually directional wheels, if they were all cutting one direction before the rotation, after the rotation half are cutting forward and half are cutting backward. This would be functionally fine, but visually suboptimal.

But how often do you see a car with directional wheels where they are not all facing the same way? Pretty much never, I think. So I think most people and service centers are only rotating front to back when a vehicle has directional wheels (or maybe crossing only, like is sometimes recommended for 4WD, where you cross sides only). Do you agree?

What's the general rule of thumb in these cases? Is this one of those cases where there's a "right" way to do it (with crossing), and then a different way everyone actually does it (front to back only)?

 

[ATPMSD]

I suggest there is not “right” way since this is a matter of aesthetics. The only potential consideration, that comes to mind, is the “wrong” way could add drag and reduce mileage.

 

[Skotty]

Actually, upon further review, I think maybe this is a very limited issue these days. Back quite a few years ago, especially in aftermarket rims, you could get wheels with directional patterns and you would actually get 2 wheels with the design facing one way, and 2 wheels with the design facing the other way, such that all wheel designs would face the same direction. But as I was attempting to look at some newer cars with directional patterns, I'm discovering that a lot of them do not face the same way on the car, but one way on one side and the other way on the other side. Essentially all 4 wheels are the same, so the rotation question does not apply. This makes some sense in that you only need 1 version of the wheel, but once you notice it, it's a little weird to have the pattern going the opposite way on the other side of the vehicle. But maybe that's how most of them are these days.