I ordered OWL tires to be installed while my '96 truck was having the lower ball joints and front shocks replaced at a local indy garage. When I picked my truck up at closing time, I noticed that the tires appeared to be BSW. I was disappointed but assumed that Tire Rack had sent the wrong tires and I'd have to sort it out with them. However, when I got home and called the online retailer, the service rep suggested I look under the vehicle to see if the tires were backwards because, apparently, sometimes mechanics do that assuming you would rather have the black side facing out. I thought "Why would anyone do that, especially when the old tires had very visible white letters?" But the rep was right: The garage had installed the tires with the white lettering facing the inside! They could have at least asked before installing the tires that way. The white lettering is covered in blue paint and therefore harder to spot, but there's no way they overlooked that on all four tires.

Now I'm wondering if there is a simple fix. Can the steel wheels be flipped around with the chrome hubcaps mounted on the other side or would the offset be different?

 

I'm guessing they're gonna need to be taken off the wheel, flipped, remounted the balanced all over again.

 

Rims can only be mounted qne way....If you want the white lettering out they are gonna have to dismount the tires turn them around & rebalance etc..... Why they wouldn't all & ask you what you wanted especially when you already had the white lettering out on the old tires is incomprehensible...But you can't fix stupid ??

 

(Sigh) I was hoping the steel wheels might be different, but I'm not surprised. I hate to be the proverbial squeaky wheel. But it was a dumb mistake and making it right shouldn't come out of my pocket.

 

I have ALWAYS told the installer how I wanted my new tires installed even going back to the whitewall days..You should not be charged again for mounting and balancing since you cannot revererse the rims and should have been asked. .My own personal preference was to have the lettering put inside because I don't want to see it.

 

Do you have mag wheels?
If you do not specify raised white letters in or out
They will go blackwall out with mags and whitewall out if steel wheels

 

No, the truck has steel wheels and it had tires with raised white letters facing out when I got it. Those were the tires that were replaced.

Duly noted. These were the first white letter tires I've ever ordered. It never occurred to me that someone might order white letter tires but not want to see the white letters.

 

Are there tire types/sizes that only come with white letters on one side? My pickup had RWL tires on it when I got it from my uncle. Some vehicles look better one way or the other. Or "to each his own" and "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" I guess. At any rate, I liked the way those tires looked on the truck so I intentionally ordered similar tires when it came time to replace them. And I was flabbergasted when I realized the shop had mounted them backwards without consulting me when the vehicle already had such tires on it with the white letters facing out.