Tire rotation on AWD

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by JOD
When you say "AWD", what exactly do you mean? My car is AWD, but it's predominantly FWD--so the pattern you're using is still applicable (and that's what's recommended by the mfg).

If it's similar to the Haldex system, the wear pattern is nearly identical to a FWD car.



My car uses a "reactive" AWD system. Treadware has always been even, F/R. All 4 tires wear down at the same identical rate.

 

[bachman]

Originally Posted by UG_Passat
Originally Posted by bachman
Originally Posted by UG_Passat
The key point is rotate them often enough, that you don't have too much of a wear difference between each tire.

VW calls for 10,000 mile rotation to coincide with their maintenance schedule, which IMO, is way too long between rotations.


Yeah, that's by far not real-world - 10k
You can so easily tell by viewing tires , tread wear, even or uneven and depth of the tread block etc...

I think the belted tires of years ago warned against side to side swaps due to the belts shifting off center. Anyone who know the prices of good tires and doesn't like to skimp isn't be cheap IMO being somewhat anal about monitoring the tire wear and doing the rotate front to rear accordingly to get the life and performance bang for buck.
If you have to do a side to side swap for a reason, it's probably an alignment issue.


With especially European manufacturers with their extended drain intervals, that's when you rotate tires, if they even rotate them at all.


But, even the other makes are slowly going to longer oil drain intervals, which in turn, means longer tire rotation intervals.



UG_Passat
I realize you are repeating what 'they say' and I hope not buying into it or promoting the smarts of it....

IMO Oil change interval = tire wear and rotation needs ? There is no part of the globe where that wound make more sense, less sense or any sense ! Is that by some coincidence when I should add washer fluid too ?

On the OP point, I have not seen many car owner mans that do not state exactly how the rotate pattern is to be done per manufacturer design. Most of the time it's a bold diagram with arrows and very limited reading.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by bachman
…… I think the belted tires of years ago warned against side to side swaps due to the belts shifting off center. ……..


I see that I have not posted why the side to side swap was invented. Apologies to those who have read this before.

In the early days of steel belted radial tires, (we are talking the early 1970's), there was a problem with the adhesion of the rubber to the steel. It was common for a chemical bonding agent called HMT (hexamethylenetetramine) to be used. In the presence of water, that turned into an acid - and since water vapor can penetrate the rubber matrix - the acid would corrode the steel.

The research found that the separation would start on one side of each strand of the steel wire - and the thought was that if the direction of rotation were NOT changed, the other side wouldn't separate.

Even back then, it sounded bogus to me. My understanding of how cracks propagate is that cracks continue to grow once started.

Once the HMT was identified as the culprit, it was replaced by a similar bonding agent called HMMM (hexamethoxymethylmelamine). That solved that issue, but the recommendation about front/rear rotation lingered around for a long time because the important part of all rotation patterns is the front/rear part.

Originally Posted by bachman
…… If you have to do a side to side swap for a reason, it's probably an alignment issue.


Ah ….. Mmmm …… not exactly.

Ya' see, not only do suspensions move up and down, but in the process, they change the camber and sometimes the toe, as well as the tire's distance from the frame (track width). The net result is irregular tire wear, which can cause vibration and noise.

Cross rotating helps prevent that. The effect isn't as great as the front to rear pattern, but it is an enhancement.

I recommend people do cross rotating if they can.

 

[Dwight_Frye]

Originally Posted by Ws6
Originally Posted by JOD
When you say "AWD", what exactly do you mean? My car is AWD, but it's predominantly FWD--so the pattern you're using is still applicable (and that's what's recommended by the mfg).

If it's similar to the Haldex system, the wear pattern is nearly identical to a FWD car.



My car uses a "reactive" AWD system. Treadware has always been even, F/R. All 4 tires wear down at the same identical rate.


Ws6, I also have a Mazda CX 5 with the AWD system. The owners manual suggests tire rotations every 5000 miles by moving the fronts to the rear and then crossing the rears when moved back to the front. My CX 5 just has a little over 5000 miles on it now and I will probably rotate them myself when the weather warms up a little and I want to spend an hour out in the garage.

Has your experience been that it's probably not necessary to rotate unless I notice an uneven wear pattern ?

 

[bachman]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer


Originally Posted by bachman
…… If you have to do a side to side swap for a reason, it's probably an alignment issue.


Ah ….. Mmmm …… not exactly.

Ya' see, not only do suspensions move up and down, but in the process, they change the camber and sometimes the toe, as well as the tire's distance from the frame (track width). The net result is irregular tire wear, which can cause vibration and noise.

Cross rotating helps prevent that. The effect isn't as great as the front to rear pattern, but it is an enhancement.

I recommend people do cross rotating if they can.


Yes, I didn't mean to make it sound absolute, chose loose wording.

It's rare that I've seen need or value myself but in a few occasions over the past 43 years of my ownership or in care of the kids cars, cross rotate looked ideal for off-setting some inner or outer tread wear that was looking uneven and didn't seem alignment related. Netted a bit more use miles and bought time before tires were out of life. Road camber, where we live and drive and how we treat the cars and tires are variables upon variables so my general comment was amiss or a miss .... ( another conundrum )....

On my G-35, those things are well known for the neg camber that burns up rear tire inners fast. I was very fortunate not to have that problem but many owners sounded like they were going broke with a $42,000 car when complaining about brake jobs and tire wear or tire costs.

 

[john_pifer]

This is funny. For sure, a BITOG worry!

Just look at the condition of your average driver's tires, next time you're out. I'd venture to guess that most don't even rotate. And, the ones who do, probably just have the local Discount Tire do it, and, I'm quite sure they just swap the front with the back on every vehicle.

 

[UG_Passat]

Originally Posted by bachman
Originally Posted by UG_Passat
Originally Posted by bachman
Originally Posted by UG_Passat
The key point is rotate them often enough, that you don't have too much of a wear difference between each tire.

VW calls for 10,000 mile rotation to coincide with their maintenance schedule, which IMO, is way too long between rotations.


Yeah, that's by far not real-world - 10k
You can so easily tell by viewing tires , tread wear, even or uneven and depth of the tread block etc...

I think the belted tires of years ago warned against side to side swaps due to the belts shifting off center. Anyone who know the prices of good tires and doesn't like to skimp isn't be cheap IMO being somewhat anal about monitoring the tire wear and doing the rotate front to rear accordingly to get the life and performance bang for buck.
If you have to do a side to side swap for a reason, it's probably an alignment issue.


With especially European manufacturers with their extended drain intervals, that's when you rotate tires, if they even rotate them at all.


But, even the other makes are slowly going to longer oil drain intervals, which in turn, means longer tire rotation intervals.



UG_Passat
I realize you are repeating what 'they say' and I hope not buying into it or promoting the smarts of it....

IMO Oil change interval = tire wear and rotation needs ? There is no part of the globe where that wound make more sense, less sense or any sense ! Is that by some coincidence when I should add washer fluid too ?

On the OP point, I have not seen many car owner mans that do not state exactly how the rotate pattern is to be done per manufacturer design. Most of the time it's a bold diagram with arrows and very limited reading.

Go look at a VW maintenance schedule. The German overlords says 10,000 mile rotations are fine.

 

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by Dwight_Frye
Originally Posted by Ws6
Originally Posted by JOD
When you say "AWD", what exactly do you mean? My car is AWD, but it's predominantly FWD--so the pattern you're using is still applicable (and that's what's recommended by the mfg).

If it's similar to the Haldex system, the wear pattern is nearly identical to a FWD car.



My car uses a "reactive" AWD system. Treadware has always been even, F/R. All 4 tires wear down at the same identical rate.


Ws6, I also have a Mazda CX 5 with the AWD system. The owners manual suggests tire rotations every 5000 miles by moving the fronts to the rear and then crossing the rears when moved back to the front. My CX 5 just has a little over 5000 miles on it now and I will probably rotate them myself when the weather warms up a little and I want to spend an hour out in the garage.

Has your experience been that it's probably not necessary to rotate unless I notice an uneven wear pattern ?


I have the dealership do it. For the past 10K miles, they didn't, but this last time they did, even though wear was 100% even. My tires are now at about 18K miles, and all look great with 7/32 left. They are CrossContact LX25's. The OEM Toyoa A36's were done at this point.

 

[SubLGT]

Subaru used to recommend no cross over, even for non-directional tires. But in 2007 they issued a TSB recommending that non-directional tires be rotated:
Front tires go straight to the rear.
Rear tires are crossed over to the front

 

[tshephard]

I rotate as little as possible, but will also pay for remounts.
I keep spreadsheets and plot wear, but typically drive wheels wear more - so mostly front to rear keeping same side.
(RWD - I have learned/feel that Left Rears spin more on take-off across incoming traffic, and Front Rights curve harder/faster going left again, more than slower right turns - stoplights and such. So overall front and rear covers 90% of it - highest wear position LR to lowest wear position LF.)
I do curve HARD at speed - and cannot convince an alignment man to compensate on a street car. So I wear outside edges - even on a good alignment - and just plot and pay (typically) for one end to get remounted so those outsides become insides (both maintain direction) before they are too low.

If anyone wishes to...
I measure inner and outer in 3 places (move car once) 120 or so apart.
Average those per tire and position in /32s.
Plot rate of wear since last rotation (% per kmiles), and check against life of car for that position.
See if $40 remounts will pay in extending life of group.

I'm doing better at this than arguing with aligners!
But I do have to argue with remounters.

 

[ARB1977]

I just rotated the factory tires on my wife’s Pilot AWD. X the fronts and the rears ||. All four measured 7/32.

 

[HemiBenny]

I've always rotated my Sister-in-laws 2016 Subaru legacy tires by crossing the rears to the front and dropping the front tires straight back. I rotate them at every oil change, 6-7000 miles. It seems to work in keeping her tires wearing evenly,...of course, the biggest factor in this is having a suspension that is in good shape as well as your alignment being set correctly.