DIY Tire Rotation?

[miden851]

Originally Posted By: Gimpy1
Originally Posted By: miden851
Originally Posted By: funkymonkey1111
Originally Posted By: dogememe
Whether you go to your local Iffy Lube or do your own oil changs, you're tires don't rotate themselves, so clearly it's not THAT important...

But how much does it really matter? And if you do rotate your tires every oil change and you do it yourself, what's the fastest way?

Personally, I have an electric impact wrench, I have those torque-stick things not to over-torque the lugs, and I have "normal, boring" vehicles that have the same tire and wheel sizes all the way around, but I would literally have to jack up the whole vehicle, put it on jack stands, IDK how to do that safely, easily, and quickly...


every 5000 miles at Costco. Rotate and balance for free with purchase.


the same goes here; plus they use hydrogen on tires, and if there is leak they'll fix it


Ummmm They use Hydrogen???? LOL I think you mean Nitrogen. Which is a sales gimmick. Air is 78% Nitrogen, using "dry nitrogen" will do nothing at all unless you are racing a Formula 1 car where having 1 psi difference between tires is critical.


Yeah I meant to say Nitrogen, LoL; anyway, it works better because the pressure is more stable in tires, so when you have oscillation in the air temperature outside, such as harsh winter or scorching heat; Thus they are not as affected as in ones inflated with air only;

I can attest to that because I use Nitrogen in one of my cars while just air in the other car

 

[bruckus]

The civic i bring to discount tire for free rotations. Our Jeep is new so I do the 5 tire rotation using the spare. Makes it easy, one wheel at a time. Will do my own until we put 5 new ones on at Discount Tire.

 

[WhyMe]

just like an oil change it takes longer for me to drive there and wait for them to do it than doing it at home. 1/2 hour 45 mins at max. jack up the front on jack stands. move jack to rear and jack up and stands. break out the impact zip zip rotate tires and torque lugs

 

[double vanos]

F150, put front on jack stands then use jack on back end. Back tires to front Same side , cross the fronts going on the rear. Use battery impact.

 

[edwardh1]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I rotate my own tires, it gives me the opportunity to check suspension, brakes, etc. With air tools, jacks and stands it is easy and fast. No worries of over torquing, waiting, and then having to mark tires to make sure it was done if I don't have the time to sit and baby sit the vehicle. I had one incident with paying a dealer to do a tire rotation and them swearing up and down they did it when in fact they didn't. Catching them in a lie was real easy when I showed the service writer how I marked the tires. Then just last month I had to lend my buddy a 2' breaker bar and 5' cheater pipe to get his wheel off because the shop that did his brakes and tire rotation torqued them to an amount that was impossible to remove any other way. I will continue to do as much of my own work as long as I physically can.


yes my front end mans adult son used an impact wrench 20 years ago to tighten my olds ciers lug nuts , was on so tite when I tried to remove it it cracked a craftsman socket. I never went back to that shop.

 

[dogememe]

Wow, lots of people passionate about doing it and some people that don't. Hmm...

I like the idea of every once in a while when the vehicle is in the shop for something unrelated you're not doing yourself having it done. That's smart, and I think that's a good idea. Not like your vehicle will NEVER go in the shop - can't fix everything yourself. And while they have it in the air it should be minimal extra $ to ask them to rotate the tires.

 

[raytseng]

BMW no longer recommends you to rotate tires.

As long as you do not have awd, and your tirewear and alignment is normal, the benefits from rotating tires is rather minor. Especially the cross versus the occasional
front to rear.
There are actually some performance downsides to rotating, but you are trading for frugality and tire life
If your alignment is abnormaln rotating will just eat all your tires instead of only the one or pair of tires
The way to think about it is like grating carrots. If you rotate you are giving up tread contact and have worse performance every time you rotate. But in exchange you don't end up with a triangle carrot stub at the end and can get a few more grates in. but all your shavings will be shortened shavings rather than long shavings
Many would argue those last few grates are the worst part of the tire anyway.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: miden851

Yeah I meant to say Nitrogen, LoL; anyway, it works better because the pressure is more stable in tires, so when you have oscillation in the air temperature outside, such as harsh winter or scorching heat; Thus they are not as affected as in ones inflated with air only;

I can attest to that because I use Nitrogen in one of my cars while just air in the other car


I am glad because I was starting to think all Hindenburgy here...THE HUMANITY!!!

 

[mcwilly]

I drive up on ramps first, pull the plug and filter. Then use a jack and stands to switch front to back on each side of the car.

Lifting the sides of the car while the oil plug is out gets some extra oil drizzling out.

 

[Black_Thunder]

i rotate them regularly, it obviously matters more on larger vehicles trucks suv's etc.


I usually do the typical cross the fronts to the rear, and rears straight to the front.

or i look at the tires closely to see what kind of wear they have before i decide what position to put them etc.


on my t-bird it has directional rims so its only straight forward and straight back.


my 98 explorer i just found out has a bad upper ball joint, so when i change the ball joint i'm going to just rotate the front tires side to side if i see any signs of extra wear on the inside of the right tire.

 

[Nick1994]

I buy my tires at Discount Tire and usually have them rotate and balance so they can keep track for warranty.

But the Sonata came with a new set of tires last year so I’ve been rotating them about every oil change. I just put my floorjack on the pinchweld right in the middle of the car and lift up the whole side. When I get new tires I’ll have Discount Tire do it.

The Jeep’s tires are getting older, and the RR seems to be wearing faster so I rotated the right side myself last time.

 

[SR5]

Not often, but I just did it recently in a diagonal pattern, front-left to rear-right etc.

I just used a normal floor jack and tyre iron. No stands or rattle guns. I swapped the spare in so I could lower the car then jack up the other corner. Yes it did take a long time, but I cleaned the inside of the rim on each tyre when it was off the car, and the car was always ready to go with the spare on.

I noticed that the car tends to wear the front on the outside, but the rear on the inside.

 

[Tomioka]

A lot of tire places do em for free if you buy tires from them. Especially if you don't mind the occasional stripped lug nut/stud.

I have a sloped driveway/garage so it would be time consuming and dangerous. I just make an appointment, drive in at that date and you're out in less the length of an anime show.

 

[benjy]

one or 2 jacks + jackstands, free + easy!!! be aware torque sticks are NOT so accurate!!!

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted By: miden851
Originally Posted By: funkymonkey1111
Originally Posted By: dogememe
Whether you go to your local Iffy Lube or do your own oil changs, you're tires don't rotate themselves, so clearly it's not THAT important...

But how much does it really matter? And if you do rotate your tires every oil change and you do it yourself, what's the fastest way?

Personally, I have an electric impact wrench, I have those torque-stick things not to over-torque the lugs, and I have "normal, boring" vehicles that have the same tire and wheel sizes all the way around, but I would literally have to jack up the whole vehicle, put it on jack stands, IDK how to do that safely, easily, and quickly...


every 5000 miles at Costco. Rotate and balance for free with purchase.


the same goes here; plus they use hydrogen on tires, and if there is leak they'll fix it


Left over from the Hindenberg visit, I suppose. No call for it anymore, so they give you a good deal?

 

[maxdustington]

Snow-tate. Might as well mark them in the fall and change their position on the car come spring.

 

[JLTD]

Originally Posted By: raytseng
BMW no longer recommends you to rotate tires.

As long as you do not have awd, and your tirewear and alignment is normal, the benefits from rotating tires is rather minor. Especially the cross versus the occasional
front to rear.
...


Can't say I agree with you there.

Perhaps other makes and models don't require or don't benefit from rotation, but some obviously do.

I've had more than one vehicle that had extremely worn outside edges on the front, and even wear on the rear. These were properly inflated, correct size and load range for the vehicles when I got them used. When I got new tires for them the same thing happened, which was cured by rotating every 10k miles, or less, as appropriate.

Without rotation, I would have been replacing the fronts every 20k or less on the worse of the two; with rotation the set lasted 60k miles. I consider that to be a benefit.

 

[Linctex]

About every 10,000-ish miles... I don't really keep records, but the backs do wear out faster than the fronts.

The fronts each go straight back,
but the backs get crossed to the other side on their way forward.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: maxdustington
Snow-tate. Might as well mark them in the fall and change their position on the car come spring.


This is my deal as well. I don't even mark them, just put the better ones in front. (They are all within 2/32 of each other.)

If I had to rotate for other reasons, like to chase away a vibration, I can put the jack on the unibody frame rail about 12 inches aft of the firewall. The front tire eventually gets 6 inches off the ground and the rear tire then lifts up with it.

 

[ZebRuaj]

I do front to back pre winter and post winter, along with lubing the brakes ... but more to check for anything frozen or seized with the brakes. Rotating is just a bonus.