assymetrical , directional or non directional
 

as an old [ in both senses ] tyre man I still casually follow developments in the field ; soon after I started the first [ I believe ] assymetric tyre was introduced by michelin for the citroen DS19 [ michelin owned citroen at the time ] ; non directional was the norm otherwise

but now we have 3 basic types , question is what do people find is the best on an A8 ?

my 8 came fitted with directional tyres [ now an obsolete pattern ], not a problem until recently I damaged a tyre and , of course , the spare was mounted the wrong way ; ok , not an immediate problem , will run quite ok the wrong way but with some loss of wet performance

so plan of campaign is to get the tyre rotated and buy something cheap to use as what used to be called a special spare [ maybe still is ? ]

but longer term what is the best thing to do ? what is the best pattern for the car ? each type has it's strong point , directional for water shifting ; snow traction etc , assymetric ought to offer the best cornering , non directional equal performance mounted either way

I must admit that after recent events I am biased against directional tyres but if peoples experience suggests that they are best I could live with 4 + a special spare

any advice ? won't be yet but better baden powell

As a man who likes to swap around tyres to even wear I do not like directional tyres as you cannot swap left to right without taking tyre off the rim and incurring costs for it. I find that left side tyres wears faster for me, I blame the roundabouts for it because I did not experience this back in Latvia where we had lot less roundabouts but it has happened to every car in UK.

Like you say there are benefits for directional tyres in mud and snow and to some extent in standing water but tyres with large longitudinal grooves are fairly good at displacing water as well.

Assymetrical are supposed to be better for cornering and more even wear at least in theory but you cannot turn it other way round if you have inside or outside edge wearing more. Considering costs for swapping tyre other way round in UK(£10) I would probably not do it anyway and my wear pretty evenly on the inside and outside but less in the middle. If you mount tyres yourself or live in the country where labour costs are cheaper than ability to swap inside and outside could be a factor.

So to summarise for me assymetrical are slightly preferred and for summer tyres better to be non-directional but for winter either directional or non-directional will do. I am always buying second hand tyres so value for money, tread depth and manufacturing date are more important for me.

strange to say michelin designed the assymetric tyre for the DS 19 because when speeds increased due to the advent of dual carriageways in france the car was unstable ......at 100 Km/hr or more the car weaved so this was their solution

I now have 4 directional Nokian winter tyres and 5 non-directional Kumho summer tyres and consider the spare wheel issue to be serious one. I think thats its not just a loss of "some" performance in the wet from a "wrong direction" (is that a pop group?) tyre but would produce a potentially serious and dangerous situation. The tread will channel water to the centre of the tyre and would produce a nice standing layer of water under the tyre such that I am sure that aquaplaning would occur at low speed.

I've stuck to asymmetric tyres for some while now, avoiding directional.