Four tire vs five tire rotation: cost-effective?

[Shannow]

My Nissan came with 4 alloys, and a steel spare...4 wheel rotation.

At year 10 of ownership, I had a 10 year old spare, with 400-500km on it, still with the nubbs on it...so I was in the market for a new spare.

Messed with the idea of a Chinese tyre for replacement, narrower, higher profile, and lighter (as it's non matching, I thought "what the hay).

In the meantime, I spotted a matching alloy on ebay for $100 delivered (wreckers wanted $300), which I bought....installed a matching tyre to those on the car, now do 5 tyre rotations.

Put the 10 year old spare and rim, (yes with date codes)on ebay and got $120.

I DO prefer 5 tyre rotations, after seeing my Parent's R16 spare tyre rotten a couple of times from being mounted over the engine, in an era of carbs, and engine bay vapours.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Kuato

4) Tire wear.
Your tires do last longer using this method. Cost is balanced out by having to purchase 5 tires at once instead of 4, but overall there is no cost difference in the long run. Unless you count that the spare in the trunk is completely wasted without rotating it in.

There is cost difference in long run.

Let say you keep a car for 20 years and by at that time you drive 300,000 miles.

If the tires will lasted 50,000 miles with 4 tire rotation and 60,000 miles with 5 tire rotation, you need to buy 6 sets of tire(of 4 tires) over its lifetime for 4-tire rotation and 5 sets(of 5 tires) of tires for 5-tire rotation.

You pay for 1 extra tire with 5-tire rotation but along the way you have a fresh spare tire ready to use. With 4-tire rotation you need to buy 2 spare tires after every 8-10 years.

The problem is most vehicles don't have spare tire/wheel combo identical to the other 4 wheels, so 5-tire rotation is not in the equation.

 

[Dexters]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR


Let say you keep a car for 20 years and by at that time you drive 300,000 miles.

If the tires will lasted 50,000 miles with 4 tire rotation and 60,000 miles with 5 tire rotation, you need to buy 6 sets of tire(of 4 tires) over its lifetime for 4-tire rotation and 5 sets(of 5 tires) of tires for 5-tire rotation.

You pay for 1 extra tire with 5-tire rotation but along the way you have a fresh spare tire ready to use. With 4-tire rotation you need to buy 2 spare tires after every 8-10 years.





tire life 50,000

50,000 miles with 4 tire rotation = (6 x 4) + 1 spare (or 2 due to age) = 25 or 26 tires

60,000 miles with 5 tire rotation = 5 x 5 = 25 tires

The benefit of the 5 tire rotation is the longer time between purchases.

 

[berniedd]

Originally Posted By: Dexters
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR


Let say you keep a car for 20 years and by at that time you drive 300,000 miles.

If the tires will lasted 50,000 miles with 4 tire rotation and 60,000 miles with 5 tire rotation, you need to buy 6 sets of tire(of 4 tires) over its lifetime for 4-tire rotation and 5 sets(of 5 tires) of tires for 5-tire rotation.

You pay for 1 extra tire with 5-tire rotation but along the way you have a fresh spare tire ready to use. With 4-tire rotation you need to buy 2 spare tires after every 8-10 years.





tire life 50,000

50,000 miles with 4 tire rotation = (6 x 4) + 1 spare (or 2 due to age) = 25 or 26 tires

60,000 miles with 5 tire rotation = 5 x 5 = 25 tires

The benefit of the 5 tire rotation is the longer time between purchases.



@Dexters
This is not the whole picture. Your equation shows you bought 1 or 2 spare tires you didn't get to use. It is slightly less expensive to do a 5-tire rotation.

 

[CapriRacer]

I would think it would be obvious that if you use a 5th tire in the rotation, then the overall mileage for the set would be increased by 25%. If you use the best tire in the set as a spare for the next set, then that would be the functional equivalent to using the fifth tire as a spare from the beginning and as the spare for 2 sets - but cheaper by 12 1/2%.

If you don't rotate the 5th tire, then you've got an old tire that would be risky even as a spare during the second set's life.

The question would be, is it cost effective?

So if the cost of rotating tires is free - as in you do it yourself or someone is performing the service at no cost, then how could it not be cost effective?

But if you have to pay for the rotation, then it gets more complicated, but since you are supposed to be rotating tires anyway, this is still cost effective. The only time it would not be cost effective would be if you don't rotate at all, or you rotate very infrequently - on the order of 2 or 3 times in the life of the set.

And on a related note:

Way back when, I had access to detailed wear data as part of a test the company was conducting on some tires I was working on. The data was so detailed, I could see the effect of steer positions vs drive positions (RWD!). Because I had several sets of data, I calculated the effect rotation would have and came up with between 10% and 15% more miles out of the same set of tires if they were rotated.

Why? Because the point at which a tire is worn out is when the fastest wearing groove wears out. By rotating the tires, you change which groove is wearing fastest - thereby extending the overall point when that happens.

 

[supton]

I don't think I've ever used the spare on my vehicles. Not the same rim as whatever is on the corners, so putting on the spare and motoring on for a few months is not an option. Ergo, I leave the spare alone. If I have a flat I'll limp to a station and have the flat fixed or replaced. Not buying spare tires that I don't use "pays" for that.

Since I am not sure about driving cars past ten years I'm not that worried about pressing into service a ten year old spare. It just has to make it off the highway and to a shop.

 

[IndyIan]

I did do a 5 tire rotation on the Tracker with the original tires, but I found they were aging out(getting hard, no wet traction)long before wearing out.
After that I just got sets of 4 as I run snow tires on it as well. So while the snow tires do actually wear out, before aging out, they are all directional so a 5 tire rotation doesn't work.

 

[KitaCam]

Good points all....

1. I have 5 matching alloys...with 5 matched tires.

2. Tires currently on the car (with 126k miles) are no longer made so I can't buy 4 of same to match the best of the 5 I have now...

3. My next tire will be the "new-to-market" Cooper CS5-UT, that I'm thinking that a set of 5 could last 2/3 of their rating (40-45k of 50k miles) and take about 4 years....I've yet to get much more than 1/2 of a tire's tread-wear rating here in south Florida with a 4-tire set, so this may just be wishful thinking...

4. The CS5 should still be marketed/available in 3 years so the NEXT set could be 4 new tires + the best of the 1st five as the spare...that should take me another 36k over 3 years for a total of about 75k miles for the 2 sets.

5. Whether the 10-yr old Kitacam would still be my car in 7 years @ 200k miles is pure conjecture so I'm not thinking beyond that....if the 2 sets take me anywhere near 200k I'd be happy...

6. I like the thought that a punctured-lost tire would be replaced by an identical tire with similar wear...THAT is a real benefit.

Thanks all!

 

[Traction]

Unless YOU rotate your own tires, 4 or 5, it is not cost effective no matter what. For example, if you paid someone $15 to do it for you every 5kmi over the life of 80kmi tires, it would cost you $240.

 

[KitaCam]

Originally Posted By: Traction
Unless YOU rotate your own tires, 4 or 5, it is not cost effective no matter what. For example, if you paid someone $15 to do it for you every 5kmi over the life of 80kmi tires, it would cost you $240.


Yeah, but it's still gotta be done...

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: CapriRacer

And on a related note:

Way back when, I had access to detailed wear data as part of a test the company was conducting on some tires I was working on. The data was so detailed, I could see the effect of steer positions vs drive positions (RWD!). Because I had several sets of data, I calculated the effect rotation would have and came up with between 10% and 15% more miles out of the same set of tires if they were rotated.

Why? Because the point at which a tire is worn out is when the fastest wearing groove wears out. By rotating the tires, you change which groove is wearing fastest - thereby extending the overall point when that happens.


Thankyou again for another pearl to file away.

 

[Kuato]

Come on people, think.

Whether you rotate your own tires or not, the cost is the same because you rotate at a certain number of miles so that doesn't factor in.

How many miles x tire lasts doesn't matter either, since each tire will last a certain # of miles.

The only cost difference is the tire you leave in your trunk. New car, no price difference. But eventually the spare will have to be replaced, and that is where the cost difference comes in, when you buy a tire but don't use it.

 

[Nick1994]

IMO it's probably best to just buy a used tire from a corner tire shop that's only 2-3 years old for $20 and then in 5 years sell it on Craigslist for $20 and buy a newer used tire for $20 again. It's not like a spare is being used all the time. My spare has been used twice in the last 10 1/2 years and has maybe 30 miles on it. If I replace it I wouldn't care if it's a cheap used tire, it's getting used for only a few miles anyways. If the spare goes flat while driving I'll call my insurance roadside assistance and they'll tow me for free.