[Malum Prohibitum]

How often do you do it and why?

 

[Mafuta54]

How often do you do it and why?

I was told it needed to be done every 6000 miles to make sure the tread wear is even.

 

[Adam5]

I rotate mine at every other oil change, for the reason stated above. It keeps the wear even and is a chance to inspect them for abnormal wear or damange.

 

[martin_j001]

On our cars it gets done with every oil change (3k miles on one car, ~5k on the other). And yeah, to help even tread wear. Only on our newer car do I car a good bit about proper alignment, etc. On the older POS car, I don't worry about little things too much...at 190k+ miles, I don't want to put money in it where I don't have to...

 

[NTA]

Thanks for the reminder, I'm overdue.
Discount Tire says every 5 - 6K and they do it and rebalance them all for free if you buy their tire insurance plan.

Actually I only do that on my 2wd truck and all-wheel drive sedan.

Front wheel drive car:
I keep the best tires on the front, I know this goes against tire store insurance guidelines. That means one rotation per life of front tires assuming all 4 bought new, to bring the best ones to the front. When the fronts wear out, buy two and replace the fronts. Rears often last forever, or until they rot.

 

[samman23]

I do them every 6k. if one tire or two tires to wears unevenly compared to the others, rotating the tire spreads the wear around so that they are all equal. FWD tends to eat front tires and RWD tends to eat rear tires. Rotating them helps even it out so that all your tires get replaced at once instead of one or two at a time.

 

[mountainpass]

Depends on vehicle.
I look at the tires. Once I notice the fronts rounding a bit I decide to change them. Rears normally are flat across the tire.

I could probably get by with not rotating them on my truck, but probably get a couple thousand miles extra because of it.

My truck(Tundra 2 wheel drive) about once every 10,000 miles. I get about 20,000 on a set here in the mountains.

My GF's car(rear drive G35) about every 8,000-9,000, she got 30,000 on the first set.

You still have the Tahoe? Might check the front wheel bearings if you have odd wear on the fronts. My father's truck (2005 4x4 1500) had a bad front bearing at 90,000. This is common on GM's truck. His old truck 96 never rotated and the tires wore the same front and rear.

 

[mzmtg]

Even though BMW specifically discourages rotating the tires, I do it anyway.

Every oil change, or about 5000 miles.

 

[rmodel65]

How often do you do it and why?

some of my cars have different sized tires so they dont get rotated... for example my 91 GT Mustang has 10.5 inch rear rims while the front uses a 9 inch rim...you rotate your tires because when you turn etc the tire isnt flat it angles witht he turns and wears the outer or inner edge of the tire so you swap them around so they will wear in a different spot etc

 

[jsmn4vu]

Just so the other school of thought gets represented: Tom McCahill used to say that the best way to rotate your tires was to put your key in the ignition and drive.

I follow BMW's recommendation and don't rotate. There is sound engineering behind their recommendation.

 

[Adam5]

There are two schools of thought on having better tires on the front or rear.

School one is that the front do 100% of the steering and 60-80% of the braking while the rears just roll along, so you want the best tires there for safety on rain slickened roads.

School two is that if you have good tires on the front and bad tires on the rear, your vehicle could spin, due to the rears sliding while sliding on rain slickened roads, so you want the better tires on the rear to prevent this.

Tire manufactures and dealers argue this all day long and get nowhere, just like arguing over calibers and whether chili should have beans.

To each his own.

What's far more important than rotation and what tires are where, is maintaining proper inflation according to the vehicle manufactures specs (unless tire sizes have been altered), and periodic inspection of the tires for signs of abnormal wear, damage or dry rotting. Another important safety factor is that if you have directional tires, that they are installed in a manner that causes them to rotate in the proper direction.

 

[Fallschirmjäger]

Subaru AWD and synthetic oil.
I rotate front to rear only, and every oil change witch is every 5-7,000 miles. Subaru's are sensitive to having all tires the same rolling diameter with their AWD transmissions.

 

[ed4]

I do them every 6k. if one tire or two tires to wears unevenly compared to the others, rotating the tire spreads the wear around so that they are all equal. FWD tends to eat front tires and RWD tends to eat rear tires. Rotating them helps even it out so that all your tires get replaced at once instead of one or two at a time.

Front wheel drive does tend to eat the front tires but the rear tires tend to get chopped/cupped from lack of weight and they actually bounce going down the road.

There are two schools of thought on having better tires on the front or rear.

School one is that the front do 100% of the steering and 60-80% of the braking while the rears just roll along, so you want the best tires there for safety on rain slickened roads.

School two is that if you have good tires on the front and bad tires on the rear, your vehicle could spin, due to the rears sliding while sliding on rain slickened roads, so you want the better tires on the rear to prevent this.

Tire manufactures and dealers argue this all day long and get nowhere, just like arguing over calibers and whether chili should have beans.

To each his own.

What's far more important than rotation and what tires are where, is maintaining proper inflation according to the vehicle manufactures specs (unless tire sizes have been altered), and periodic inspection of the tires for signs of abnormal wear, damage or dry rotting. Another important safety factor is that if you have directional tires, that they are installed in a manner that causes them to rotate in the proper direction.

Very well put. Also when I was in school(General Motors school) they told us best tires on front to help with steering in bad weather Western Auto also used to go by that. Tire stores like tires plus and tire kingdom say the opposite.

Subaru AWD and synthetic oil.
I rotate front to rear only, and every oil change witch is every 5-7,000 miles. Subaru's are sensitive to having all tires the same rolling diameter with their AWD transmissions.

Any AWD and 4WD if you engage the 4WD is sensitive and can damage something in the transfer case(Subaru and Mitsubishi(I own a Lancer Evolution VIII) call them center differentials) especially.

Also you can get cornering wear(edges of outside front tires) from cornering too fast the tire rolls under itself and rides on the very edge. Alignment won't fix cornering wear. Same wear I get on my cars. I drive too fast most of the time.

 

[Priest]

On the truck I go for 10,000 mile rotation following the old school RWD rotation pattern to try to keep wear even. Since I have fairly high mile compound tires and I am religious about keeping tire pressure to exactly what the recommended (tire MFG) pressure is. On the Wagon, it has bigs and skinnys, so the rear tire is 10.5" across and the front tires are 4" across.... I do side to side rotation of the fronts and call it a day. On the TurboCoupe tire rotation is done by the rear wheels spinning much faster than the car is moving thus turning them round like putting them on a high speed lathe. I do front tire flip flop for cornering wear and when I need 2 tires because of rear tread destruction, the fronts go there and the new ones go on the front.

It all depends on what you drive, how you drive, what tire compounds and sizes you run.... lots of variables to see if it is worth it or not.

 

[jsmn4vu]

Also you can get cornering wear(edges of outside front tires) from cornering too fast the tire rolls under itself and rides on the very edge. Alignment won't fix cornering wear.

Yes, and you can add a little negative camber to offset that tendency. Adjust to suit (assuming the inflation is sufficient and the toe-in isn't excessive).

 

[AzB]

There are two schools of thought on having better tires on the front or rear.

School one is that the front do 100% of the steering and 60-80% of the braking while the rears just roll along, so you want the best tires there for safety on rain slickened roads.

School two is that if you have good tires on the front and bad tires on the rear, your vehicle could spin, due to the rears sliding while sliding on rain slickened roads, so you want the better tires on the rear to prevent this.

Tire manufactures and dealers argue this all day long and get nowhere, just like arguing over calibers and whether chili should have beans.

To each his own.

It just depends on whether you want to hit something with the front of your car or the side of your car. :lol:

Az

 

[BirdMan]

How many of you guys rotate your spare tire (assuming it's a full-sized one) along with the other 4?

 

[rankhornjp]

I've found that having my tires "trued" is better that rotating, I get more life out of them that way. Of course I run 39+ in tires on a 4x4. :righton:

 

[Bendrr]

Malum, tire rotation is intended to even out the wear on tires from front to rear. No need to cross them from side to side, but if that makes ya happy, go for it.

Most important thing when it comes to tire wear is having the wheel alignment set properly. I bolded the word 'properly' because in my 17 years of doing this, I've seen plenty of tire shops that set wheel alignment only to center the steering wheel and *maybe* correct for caster pulls. I won't name the shop in Macon but I know of a General Manager who quietly told an alignment tech that he needed to see a little more tire wear.

On a lot of vehicles, setting the toe to spec can result in some uneven wear. Good for tire shops because they can sell a new set sooner and another alignment. Bad for the customer.

 

[XshootX]

My rear tires rarely last more than 7k miles, so it's a non-issue.

Personally, I wouldn't rotate. Rotation is designed to prevent or distribute uneven wear. Solve the problem rather than mask it - keep the pressure at recommended levels and realign if there is any pulling.