tire rotation

[mjoekingz28]

Is there any benefit to either longevity or smoother rolling to switch a tire to roll in the opposite direction?

Like LF to RF?


I was getting a resonance of some sort (thinking a wheel bearing on its way out) on my RF so, to check, I changed the RF with the RR and got some terrible steering wheel vibes, so I put it back. I have 100k mile tires (KR22) and was rotating them every 25k but decided I'll just leave them alone and replace 2 at a time.


Some have said rotating your tires will make them last longer. But all I can see is a rotation doing is making them all wear out at once. So, does altering their direction of rotation do anything?

 

[Hokiefyd]

Yes, reversing their rotation has noise/vibration benefits, if you do it often enough and if your car and alignment settings are such that it produces a "directional" wear on the tires. Most cars will do this on the front tires. Check out the shoulders of your front tires. They likely have a rough feel when you run your hand from front to back, but feel smooth when you go the other way. Reversing a tire's rotation will keep this wear as even as possible.

This is why rotation is recommended every 5-10k miles (I do my vehicles at every oil change). If you go 20k miles, that rotational wear pattern is sometimes so engrained that it makes it very noisy when you do eventually rotate. Then you're almost forced into keeping them where they were, and you eventually buy two tires to replace those and you get out of sync.

I don't necessarily think that keeping them rotated makes them last longer as a set of four. But it keeps them wearing as evenly as possible, so you can replace all four as a set with fresh rubber, which is always better to do (in my opinion) than replacing just two at a time.

For a FWD vehicle like yours, I'd rotate the front two straight back (LF to LR and RF to RR) and cross the rears forward (LR to RF and RR to LF). Do this every time, and it reverses the tires every other event.

 

[tommygunn]

Good point.....never thought of that....I've always been told to move the front to the rear......never side to side.

I can understand the front to the rear, in the "X" pattern (D.F. to P.R, and P.F. to D.R. for example....) as it'll emulate similarities of "flipping" a tire

So say, you got some bad ars shoulder wear on the D.F. tire, when you rotate the tire to the Passenger side Rear, you're essentially "flipping" the tire, so the other should wears down

Always done rotations every 6k......but until recently I've just done straight back and to the front rotation, on both sides.. makes it easier to do in the condo lot without getting any glares from other tenants

As they don't like "automotive work" in the premises......but it's quick and easy to swap Fronts to back, on the driver side, then take the jack down, and jack up the passenger side

The whole idea is the front tires typically wear out quicker than the back tires, so by rotating every 4-6k, you'll get the "most mileage" out of the tires......BUT, yes, you'll also be "stuck" buying 4 tires... instead of 2 when the time comes to replace, as they will all have "worn evently" hehehe......so it's gotta little "catch 22" if you will

 

[Radman]

Originally Posted By: tommygunn
The whole idea is the front tires typically wear out quicker than the back tires, so by rotating every 4-6k, you'll get the "most mileage" out of the tires......BUT, yes, you'll also be "stuck" buying 4 tires... instead of 2 when the time comes to replace, as they will all have "worn evently" hehehe......so it's gotta little "catch 22" if you will

I rotate my tires every Summer and strive for the 4 tires to be worn evenly. I have a friend of mine that never rotates his tires and buys two new ones with the old tires rotated to the back. Perhaps his way is most time & cost effective after all.

 

[SrDriver]

Some tires can not be run backwards and they will have an arrow on the sidewall.

Mine don't and have them rotated about every 6 or 7 thousand miles. On a new vehicle often have the first rotation done @ around 3000 miles.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: tommygunn
you'll also be "stuck" buying 4 tires... instead of 2 when the time comes to replace, as they will all have "worn evently" hehehe......so it's gotta little "catch 22" if you will

I look at it the other way. If you don't rotate, you're "stuck" buying two tires. In my opinion, you always want to purchase four tires at a time. You get fresh rubber on all four corners, and four tires that match. The handling characteristics of each tire will be the same and you're generally best-off replacing four at a time. Again, in my opinion.

 

[Hallmark]

The lack of symmetry involved in driving a vehicle with 2 new tires & 2 worn tires would really bother me, kinda like driving on 2 studded tires instead of 4.

 

[97f150]

I agree with Hallmark and Hokiefyd. I spend too much time and care on my vehicles then to just be fine rolling on 2 worn tires and 2 new ones. If the 2 front tires will wear out in 40,000 miles without rotation, then with rotation the set should last at least another 15-20k in total. Its not too much of a big deal to rotate at every oil change (5000 miles for me means every 2 months), it takes 45 minutes in your driveway or $20 at a tire shop.

 

[Dominic]

Just an interesting point: BMW doesn't recommend a tire rotation during tire life. They claim that the 5-10k mile period after rotation is a time of reduced performance that can degrade the handling and safety of the vehicle.

With that said, I rotate FWD car tires only when the fronts and rears measure slightly different. Typically this is every 10,000 miles. The fronts always wear faster than the rears.

On my AWD Subaru I never rotate the tires. They wear perfectly even throughout their life and stay in balance. I think its the better weight distribution and AWD that helps with this even wear.

 

[CapriRacer]

Just a thought on the effect rotation has on tire wear rate.

Obviously rotating tires evens out the rate of wear so the result is that all 4 tires wear out at about the same time. What is not so obvious is whether or not you get more miles if you rotate. Consider this:

If your tires have high spots and low spots caused by the wear pattern indiginous to that wheel position, then when you rotate your tires, the tires will wear those high spots off first before it starts to wear on the low spots - ergo, you get more miles.

I always wondered if I could prove that theory, so some time ago I pulled some test data on a set of tires that were run on a routine wear test. The test protocol called for 8 measurements around the circumference of the tires in all 4 grooves every 2K miles - with rotations at 8K rotation. The measurements were to the nearest 0.001". I had 40K worth of data (20 measurements).

Thank goodness for computers as I had over 2500 data points. I was able to show that the wear rate changed (for the better) when the tires were rotated. I was also able to assign a wear rate value (by groove) to each wheel position.

Using this analysis techninque I was able to prove (to myself, anyway) that the tires wore between 10% and 15% better if rotated.

 

[teddyboy]

Discount Tire sales people feel so strongly about the importance of cross rotation that they generally recommend against directional tires. The manager of my local DT claims that cross rotation "forgives a lot of sins." The rotational pattern favored by the DT's in my area is cross to front, straight back to rear. That way the tires have seen all 4 locations after the third rotation. I've always had DT rotate my tires at 5k intervals and have always had perfectly even wear on every tire.

 

[sciphi]

I've always crossed the tires when rotating non-directional tires. My Pirelli P4's are dead-even on wear after 75k miles doing this.

 

[moto94536]

Yes I always rotate tires every 5000 miles. My car is front wheel drive, I rotate x pattern.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: teddyboy
Discount Tire sales people feel so strongly about the importance of cross rotation that they generally recommend against directional tires. The manager of my local DT claims that cross rotation "forgives a lot of sins." The rotational pattern favored by the DT's in my area is cross to front, straight back to rear. That way the tires have seen all 4 locations after the third rotation. I've always had DT rotate my tires at 5k intervals and have always had perfectly even wear on every tire.

My preferred rotational pattern is cross front to rear, straight rear to front, for the tires that are not uni-directional.

I don't have any data to support long tread-life for that rotational pattern or the pattern favored by Discount Tire, I just feel good about the tires have seen all 4 locations after the third rotation.

 

[PandaBear]

Agree with all of the above. I usually rotate whenever I notice tire noise and that round out to be about 4-6k miles. I notice significantly more inner edge wear on my front (due to some alignment issue) when I replace only 2 of my tires (due to road hazard) and kept the front tires in the front and rear tires in the rear.

 

[Papa Bear]

I rotate the way my manual says to do

 

[PeteTheFarmer]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Is there any benefit to either longevity or smoother rolling to switch a tire to roll in the opposite direction?

Like LF to RF?


The vehicles I've owned always recommended some form of side to side rotation, but always combined with a move to the other end of the vehicle, so a LF to RR rather than RF for example.
I think the manual for my brother's Nissan recommends a simple front to back on both sides, though.

 

[Whimsey]

My 2002 F150 owner's manual says to rotate the front tires to the opposite rear axle and move the rear tire to the same side on the front axle. It's worked for me. My tires always wear evenly. My 1996 Contour owner's manual says to rotate the front tires to the same rear axle and rotate the rear tires to the opposite front axle. With the Contour I've only done rotations on the same sides, no problems with wearing evenly. Of course if you have directional tires I assume crossing sides is out of the question.

Whimsey

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: Whimsey
My 2002 F150 owner's manual says to rotate the front tires to the opposite rear axle and move the rear tire to the same side on the front axle. It's worked for me. My tires always wear evenly. My 1996 Contour owner's manual says to rotate the front tires to the same rear axle and rotate the rear tires to the opposite front axle.


The two vehicles are different because of the drive tires. You generally want to keep the main drive tires on the same side and rotating in the same direction during a rotation event. So for a RWD car/truck, you'd cross the fronts to the rear and move the rears straight up. For a FWD car/SUV, you'd move the fronts straight back and cross the rears forward. For an AWD car/SUV, the recommendation is usually the same for a FWD layout.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Some have said rotating your tires will make them last longer. But all I can see is a rotation doing is making them all wear out at once. So, does altering their direction of rotation do anything?


Most of my autos use unidirectional tires, so all you could do is front to rear, same side. On our trucks we rotate rarely, but even there we never reverse the rotation that the tire is used to. Based on years of hearing how bad that was for radials back in the old days.

But you were perfectly correct. All rotation does is guarantee they all wear out together. I'm not a fan.