Importance of tire rotation.??

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GROGAN

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Hi Everyone.

I have only 11K miles on my Michelin tires and they are 6 full years old... They are still in good shape with very little, if any, tire rot...

They were rotated last time 3 years ago at 6K miles....

I have found a shop to change my oil and filter and fuel filter that I trust, but they do not do tires or even rotate tires..

All the local tire shops woud change my oil and filter and fuel filter and rotate my tires, but I don't trust them as they all have bad reviews and I don't want problems...

I will furnish my own oil and filter and fuel filter too...

I plan on going 2 more years on these 6 year old Michelin tires......

Can I go two more years without tire rotation ...?
That would be a total of about 5 years and 11K miles for the tires not being rotated..I check the tire pressure often,,
Thanks
 
Ask the shop that is doing your oil change where to go to get the tires rotated. They may end up doing it for you anyway. They obviously have the lift and tools if they work on cars. They may not want to do just rotations.
 
If you plan to throw away a set of Michelins with 15k miles in another 2 years who cares, just leave them alone. On the other hand if you have the money to replace them after 15k miles, you can probably afford to have them rotated somewhere else.

BTW are these racing tires, passenger tires, truck tires???
 
Considering the amount of miles that you *aren't* driving this vehicle, if there aren't any signs of abnormal wear, feathering, vibration, pulling, etc.... I'd simply leave them right where they are.

Some vehicles are "neutral" enough that tire rotations aren't a high importance. I had a '99 Park Avenue, and I only rotated the tires every 20,000 miles or so. It just wasn't hard on tires.
 
I don't see the point in rotating them since they will be due for replacement long before their tread wears out.
 
Originally Posted By: racer12306
I don't see the point in rotating them since they will be due for replacement long before their tread wears out.


I don't seem much of a point to it either. Whenever I drive the car they already rotate all by themselves--all four of them, not the spare. I figure I usually do this frequently enough.
 
I have only recently restarted doing regular tyre rotations and my new car isn't possible to rotate.

245/45/19 front and 275/40/19 back.

In the OP's position i would also vote for not bothering.

They will definately perish before they wear out.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: bigjl
I have only recently restarted doing regular tyre rotations and my new car isn't possible to rotate.

245/45/19 front and 275/40/19 back.

In the OP's position i would also vote for not bothering.

They will definately perish before they wear out.


Some Mercedes' seem to have wider treads in the back. Maybe other car makers as well. You could still possibly swap lefts to right.

Also, directional tires are becoming very common. That makes it impractical to rotate normally; you can still swap fronts to back with no issues, but cannot switch left to right without going against manufacturers directions; still better than nothing I suppose.

How bad would it be to use directional tires in reverse? (I.e. swapping left to right, on one pair of axles, like on the rear.)
 
There are 2 purposes to tire rotation:

1) To even out the wear

FWD cars tend to wear tires 2 1/2 times faster on the front than on the rear. RWD vehicle have about the same wear rate, but steer tires tend to wear in the shoulders and drive tires tend to wear in the center - and by rotating you even out the wear pattern - which brings me to the 2nd reason.

2) To prevent the tire from permanently developing an odd wear pattern due to the position it is in.

Tires wear differently on each wheel position. Obvious the steers and the drive tires are doing different things (unless they are the same position), but there are even difference left to right. In the US we drive on the right side of the road which means a right turn at an intersection is always sharper than a left turn. That causes a very slight difference in wear that accumulates over time.

Rotating tires prevents these wear patterns from getting so bad they cause noise or vibrations (which are really the same thing only different frequencies). I've heard of FWD cars starting to get irregular wear on the rear tires as early as 20K.

And a word of warning: Once a tire gets an irregular wear pattern, it is extremely difficult to get an even wear pattern after that.

THEE most important rotation is front to rear. Those differences are easily noticeable.

Rotating side to side (in an X pattern) has a pretty small effect on things, so while I recommend using an X type pattern that makes the tires visit all positions, it isn't absolutely a necessity.
 
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I'd rather have a set of 10 year old Michelins (which I actually do have) than a new set of most anything else.
You are a gullible and wasteful consumer if you believe a tire has a life of only 7 years just because the tire manf trade association said so...
 
Originally Posted By: ueberooo
Originally Posted By: bigjl
I have only recently restarted doing regular tyre rotations and my new car isn't possible to rotate.

245/45/19 front and 275/40/19 back.

In the OP's position i would also vote for not bothering.

They will definately perish before they wear out.


Some Mercedes' seem to have wider treads in the back. Maybe other car makers as well. You could still possibly swap lefts to right.

Also, directional tires are becoming very common. That makes it impractical to rotate normally; you can still swap fronts to back with no issues, but cannot switch left to right without going against manufacturers directions; still better than nothing I suppose.

How bad would it be to use directional tires in reverse? (I.e. swapping left to right, on one pair of axles, like on the rear.)



Left to right would make little difference as i would need to remount the tyres and the point of rotation is to even out wear and i suspect maintaining an even and predictable handling balance in the wet

Put new ones one the front and the handling balance in the wet will changed in comparison to before you put the nee tyres on.

If you don't do regular rotations you can upset the balancd as much as by fitting a pair of new tyres. IMHO obviously.

If you put directional treads or similar on thw wrong way there will likely be little difference in the dry but in the wet i woukd think you will increase the chance of aqua planing hugely and braking distances would also increase as the water would no longer be efficiently dispersed.
 
Originally Posted By: Tosh
I'd rather have a set of 10 year old Michelins (which I actually do have) than a new set of most anything else.
You are a gullible and wasteful consumer if you believe a tire has a life of only 7 years just because the tire manf trade association said so...


Exactly!!
 
Originally Posted By: Tosh
I'd rather have a set of 10 year old Michelins (which I actually do have) than a new set of most anything else.
You are a gullible and wasteful consumer if you believe a tire has a life of only 7 years just because the tire manf trade association said so...


Fair enough, but tires do develop cracks as the rubber ages. This usually starts to happen around year six, although this can vary by climate and other factors.

In fact, it's particularly a problem on 10-yo Michelins because their non-performance tires (the ones that don't have "Pilot" in their name) still have half of their tread remaining after 10 years, yet the sidewalls are cracked to pieces! "Oh, there's still plenty of tread on them", so people just leave them on.
 
Surface crazing is purely cosmetic. No worries until the belts show...

My 10 yo Michelins are Pilot HX MXM4's w 59k, but I tiptoe around on them to make them last!
 
Not having a shop you trust is tough. I have four because I live near a city.

You should do your own rotations in the driveway, and take the vehicle to a shop for balancing if you notice any tire/wheel shake.
 
^This. Two $20 floor jacks and you can do it yourself in far less time than what you'll spend driving to a shop and waiting. Plus, you get to check your brake pads and suspension parts for wear - most shops don't let you near the car in the bay these days. I take mine for re-balancing every second or third rotation.

Regardless of what others will say about the practice, I also put some light oil on the lug threads. I haven't had a seized lug nut in 35 years. I did start using a torque wrench about ten years ago for the final tightening of the nuts.
 
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
^This. Two $20 floor jacks and you can do it yourself in far less time than what you'll spend driving to a shop and waiting. Plus, you get to check your brake pads and suspension parts for wear - most shops don't let you near the car in the bay these days. I take mine for re-balancing every second or third rotation.

Regardless of what others will say about the practice, I also put some light oil on the lug threads. I haven't had a seized lug nut in 35 years. I did start using a torque wrench about ten years ago for the final tightening of the nuts.

I use 1 drop ATF on lug threads.
 
Originally Posted By: Tosh
I'd rather have a set of 10 year old Michelins (which I actually do have) than a new set of most anything else.
You are a gullible and wasteful consumer if you believe a tire has a life of only 7 years just because the tire manf trade association said so...


Actually, last time I checked, they don't say so. They say 10 years, and they say that pretty reluctantly.

The push for tyre age limits doesn't seem to have come from the tyre manufacturers (who don't want to get stuck with ageing inventory). It comes from the car manufacturers, who have nothing to lose. Tyre manufacturers tend to defer to car manufacturers because they don't want to get involved in damaging disputes with them, following the Ford Explorer rollover/ Bridgestone battles
 
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