the case against tyre rotation

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I have a real problem buying tires two at a time. One is that half the time you can't get the exact same tire you bought the last time, and I don't like mis-matched sets. The second problem I have is if you end up with much older rear tires, they tend to get much harder than the the new fronts, throwing your handling and braking balance further out of whack.
 
Yes, or to put it another way, I would rather have four four year old tires than two two year old tires and two six year old tires.
 
Originally Posted By: Dieselbob
Yes, or to put it another way, I would rather have four four year old tires than two two year old tires and two six year old tires.


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Originally Posted By: Craig in Canada
Originally Posted By: Dieselbob
This is totally stupid! If you have a noticable wear difference between ANY of your tires, you either have an alignment issue or you aren't rotating them often enough. If you do it right, all tires should be within a 1/32" of each other at all times.


Wrong. Kind of a narrow-minded post, actually.

BMW E39s and E46s at least have -2* negative rear camber and rear wheel drive. Combine this with a V8 and driving to have fun and you have accelerated inside rear wear.

BMW sport package cars also tend to have a lot of heel/toe wear on the outside edges of the fronts unless the tires are made with connected tread blocks about 1" in from the outside edge. If not, they can get noisy and are sometimes a reason why people replace fronts. This isn't as much of a factor in standard suspension equipped cars.

These effects are with perfect factory spec alignments and no worn parts. All cars aren't the same.

My experiences with even my way underpowered NON-SPORT e34 525i. I have been rotating every 7,000 miles-may not do so now.
 
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Originally Posted By: Dieselbob
Yes, or to put it another way, I would rather have four four year old tires than two two year old tires and two six year old tires.


I don't think it works that way. When you replace two old tires, you have two old ones left. That would be 2 new and 2 old, not 4 old.
 
I think what he's saying is if you rotated the tires, each one would last four years instead of two of them wearing out in two years.
 
I rotate to even out wear, though because of my directional tires Im going to lose the right side first no matter what...
My next set will be asymmetrical so I can rotate to the other side.
 
Originally Posted By: Dieselbob
I have a real problem buying tires two at a time. One is that half the time you can't get the exact same tire you bought the last time, and I don't like mis-matched sets. The second problem I have is if you end up with much older rear tires, they tend to get much harder than the the new fronts, throwing your handling and braking balance further out of whack.
I feel I'm better off getting 2 of the same tire mounted on the rear, than having all 4, different, mismatched tires :)

And I mean, if you buy them in twos, as long as you got the same load rating, tread pattern on one axle, you shouldn't notice much ridability issue.....

Way I look at it, if you buy 1 tire at a time, may as well go buy used and pray the tire works for a couple months :) Otherwise you'll really have ridability issues down the road :)
 
I had no choice when I drove Audi quattros, always needed 4 of the same tires w/similar tread depth.

Now with FWD, if I want just 2 tires, I get just two. Try them out up front and go from there. Nothing stopping me form buying 2 more later.

I actually did some swapping to get 4 Michelins on one set of rims, it's two Pilot Sports and 2 HydroEdge. Well, they are different, but at least directional. I ~really~ don't think I'm going to lose control because of the differences. Like I said, at least I have the same brand so it seems more legit. I have 10 mounted tires now and am actually saving my Eagle REs because I want to buy 2 new Eagle GTs to go with them. Is it perfect? Not in one sense, but in another sense it lets me try a lot of different products.
 
Originally Posted By: Audi Junkie
I had no choice when I drove Audi quattros, always needed 4 of the same tires w/similar tread depth.

Now with FWD, if I want just 2 tires, I get just two. Try them out up front and go from there. Nothing stopping me form buying 2 more later.

I actually did some swapping to get 4 Michelins on one set of rims, it's two Pilot Sports and 2 HydroEdge. Well, they are different, but at least directional. I ~really~ don't think I'm going to lose control because of the differences. Like I said, at least I have the same brand so it seems more legit. I have 10 mounted tires now and am actually saving my Eagle REs because I want to buy 2 new Eagle GTs to go with them. Is it perfect? Not in one sense, but in another sense it lets me try a lot of different products.

I mismatch front and rear tires all the time for autocross and there are certain combonations that get pretty tricky especially in the wet. Pilot sports and hydroedges sound like a bad combo, in the dry the Pilot sports will get far more grip, and in the cold and wet the hydroedges should get more grip especially as the pilots age... If you don't do autocross, do some testing of your tire setup in the dry and wet to see what happens. If you aren't comfortable sliding your car sideways around on the road, you probably shouldn't be running odd tire setups as extreme as pilots and all seasons. Dodging the ladder on the freeway could get pretty exciting with those tires on at the same time.
 
That's ok. Like I said, the thing is I have a full set that says "Michelin". lol, I'm a player.
 
Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
I prefer Michelin but I cant take $260 a tire. lol.


Tire cost was the reason I did not switch from 15" to 17" BMW wheels. Even so I went with Michelin Pilot Exalto A/S about 30,000 miles ago. Still good for about another 15,000 miles. I do rotate about every 7,000 miles.
 
I've seen the rotate/don't rotate thing come full circle here. In the latter 70's the people working with tires said don't do it. The school of thought being that once a wear pattern developed, it was a permanent point of accelerated wear regardless of where it was moved to.

Now none of you owned a 78 BMW where you had something in the trunk. If you didn't rotate them you ended up with 4 perfectly worn out tires on the outboard tread on the front and the inboard tread on the rear. IF/RS of the day wasn't too tunable.


The best on the rear is for braking. Easy enough. FWD/RWD/4WD ..brakes are still biased to the front. Lock them up and you don't want the rear coming around on you. ABS may have changed this view. Thankfully, I don't have any vehicles with ABS. Nasty thing.

4wd appears to benefit from it. Rotate if feather edging appears.

On FWD, both front tires wore at twice the rate of the rears ..or close enough to warrant 4 every other time. But that was with simple trailing assembly that only tracked on one plane. Nothing to adjust. Don't know about the current beater.


I do enjoy reading of how complicated it is now. I'm content here in flat land.
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Originally Posted By: Audi Junkie
I rotate for seasons. Mostly, I put junk tires up front for summer, to wear them out. I have so many sets (pairs) that I can save good tires for winters and use junk in the summers.

A good plan is for fwd to buy 2 new ones every Fall and put up front, rotating the old ones to the rear. It's not the cheapest way to go, but you'll always have traction. Also, you can juggle good ones to the rear and then back up front for the next winter, but always I rotate with seasons in mind.


Do you have your own mounting and balancing equipment?

I don't think most would want the extra expense of mounting and balancing their old tires every season, not to mention the time and hassle.
 
Originally Posted By: JakeR22
Originally Posted By: Audi Junkie
I rotate for seasons. Mostly, I put junk tires up front for summer, to wear them out. I have so many sets (pairs) that I can save good tires for winters and use junk in the summers.

A good plan is for fwd to buy 2 new ones every Fall and put up front, rotating the old ones to the rear. It's not the cheapest way to go, but you'll always have traction. Also, you can juggle good ones to the rear and then back up front for the next winter, but always I rotate with seasons in mind.


Do you have your own mounting and balancing equipment?

I don't think most would want the extra expense of mounting and balancing their old tires every season, not to mention the time and hassle.


I bought extra rims (used OE) for my BMW for winter tires which eliminated the long term mounting cost. I balance my all season tires every time they are rotated. They usually need it. Rotation is free at my tire store. Even so. If I balance everytime I rotate at $30 each time ita adds up and makes you wonder, should I even worry about rotation if it might not be cost effective?
 
In my case, I don't have a choice. I have to rotate every 5K miles or one of my tires will develop a "thump." The only way to get rid of it once it starts is to replace the tire. But if I rotate every 5k it won't happen.
 
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