Normal for more tire wear in front?

[Gebo]

Be easy on me. I have made a mistake in my tire rotation in my GX470 SUV AWD. The front tires are a lot more worn than the rear.
In a car like mine, does more wear occur on the front or rear. I'm thinking front. If so, I'm gonna do a quick rotation and try and get
a little more life out of them.

 

[bullwinkle]

Normally, the fronts do more of the braking, & all of the steering, so they tend to do more work than the rears, & wear faster.

 

[Marrk]

If the wear is even, it is normal for the front tires to wear first on a front-wheel-drive car.

 

[vavavroom]

Normal because on an AWD vehicle power distribution is still biased towards the front under normal driving conditions. Plus added wear due to the effects of steering and due to most vehicles being more heavy in the front. More scrubbing occurs on the front tires.

 

[Marrk]

@Gebo Apologize for my post above. I didn't see that you were posting about an AWD. Poor reading skills on my part.

 

[Lubener]

Be easy on me. I have made a mistake in my tire rotation in my GX470 SUV AWD. The front tires are a lot more worn than the rear.
In a car like mine, does more wear occur on the front or rear. I'm thinking front. If so, I'm gonna do a quick rotation and try and get
a little more life out of them.

There's much more weight , harder braking and the grind of steering placed on the front tires. The fronts may get half the tread life of the rear , maybe less if not rotated. Get in the habit of rotating every 6000 miles and you will get the most out of your tires.

 

[Gebo]

Thanks! Gotta go by the shop for my free rotation.

 

[Kira]

I have made a mistake in my tire rotation in my GX470 SUV AWD.

What was the mistake you made?

FUNNY OBSERVATION: While it's inarguable -and plainly obvious- that rotating tires yields the longest life from tires, I've met a slew of people who vehemently maintain that tire rotation is worthless.
I think they're justifying their laziness.

 

[CapriRacer]

My experience is that most tire wear occurs when a vehicle is cornering. Driving straight ahead is practically free.

Also, steer tires tend to wear in the shoulders, where drive tires tend to wear in the center. Wear rates are dependent on the proportion of driving straight ahead vs cornering.

That means RWD generally wear at about the same rate, front to rear and rotating tires evens out the wear making for lomger wear life.

FWD, where the front tires do both the steering and the drive tend to wear the front tires much more rapidly than the rears - about 2 1/2 times faster. The purpose of rotating tires on a FWD is to have the tires at about the same amount of wear throughout their life. A vehicle's ability to handle wet weather and snow is dependent on the worst tire, so having tires of different states of wear, front to rear, means the vehicle is only as safe as the worst tire.

AWD tire wear dependent on the bias of the drive. If the AWD unit biases the front, the tire wear is like a FWD and if the rear is biased, then it wears like a RWD.

 

[Kira]

RWD generally wear at about the same rate, front to rear and rotating tires evens out the wear

..whaaa...?

 

[Patman]

What was the mistake you made?

FUNNY OBSERVATION: While it's inarguable -and plainly obvious- that rotating tires yields the longest life from tires, I've met a slew of people who vehemently maintain that tire rotation is worthless.
I think they're justifying their laziness.

I have 39 years of driving experience and I have very rarely ever rotated tires on my cars. For a lot of them I couldn’t because my Corvettes had different sized tires front to back.

On my Civic I have never rotated the tires. My last set was just replaced after 102,000 km and they still had decent tread on them and were wearing out at the same rate all around as well. So how would rotating them have benefited me in any way? It would have been a waste of time and money. I’m not lazy, I just don’t honestly see the benefit that it would provide me given my long history of not doing it and of also getting very long life out of my tires anyway

 

[Kira]

Shoula drove Civics then.

Seriously, with only a few more years of driving experience than you, I can say front tires always wear faster.
As mentioned above, the front 'shoulders' wear during turns and braking is very much done with the front tires.
This effect is minimized as the percentage of highway driving increases.

 

[Patman]

Shoula drove Civics then.

Seriously, with only a few more years of driving experience than you, I can say front tires always wear faster.
As mentioned above, the front 'shoulders' wear during turns and braking is very much done with the front tires.
This effect is minimized as the percentage of highway driving increases.

I do mostly highway driving so that’s why I’m lucky here. But my point is that not everyone needs to be rotating their tires in order to get long life. And just because we don’t, it doesn’t make us lazy. Just practical.

 

[JohnnyG]

A picture would be helpful.

 

[Patman]

A picture would be helpful.

Who are you talking to?

 

[JohnnyG]

Who are you talking to?

The OP.

 

[Astro14]

Just to clarify the discussion, the vehicle in question is a large, body on frame, V8 powered, rear wheel drive SUV.

So, like a Toyota 4Runner V8, there’s gonna be a lot of cornering wear on those front tires because there’s a fair amount of weight up front.

 

[Patman]

Just to clarify the discussion, the vehicle in question is a large, body on frame, V8 powered, rear wheel drive SUV.

So, like a Toyota 4Runner V8, there’s gonna be a lot of cornering wear on those front tires because there’s a fair amount of weight up front.

That’s a good point. I have always owned rather light weight vehicles, most of them sports cars and a mix between rear drive and front drive (I have never owned a 4WD/AWD) So having lighter cars is another factor in my good luck with tire wear.

 

[Cujet]

Seriously, with only a few more years of driving experience than you, I can say front tires always wear faster.

Not on my rear wheel drive sports cars..... My rear P-Zero's are gone. The fronts look new. Of course, from time to time, I do enjoy all 475HP.

Also, RWD cars/trucks with a friction type or Torsen limited slip can chew up rear tires on sharp turns. The Torsen especially if you accelerate somewhat hard as it will lock L+R together, scrubbing the inside tire.

 

[Astro14]

Shoula drove Civics then.

Seriously, with only a few more years of driving experience than you, I can say front tires always wear faster.
As mentioned above, the front 'shoulders' wear during turns and braking is very much done with the front tires.
This effect is minimized as the percentage of highway driving increases.

Really depends on the car, the driver and how they drive it.

True on a FWD, and a heavy SUV, at least for me, but on a high HP RWD? Well…