Should I be rotating these tires?

[rh71]

They are a staggered set so by rotate I just mean from left front to right front and same with the rears.

My car has been pulling to the left so I took it in for an alignment. I also used some recommended specs from another forum. Before the alignment was done, the tech said that the Continental DWS are known to pull ("look it up on Google, it's true") and so there's no warranty on the alignment work. He suggested I do the side-to-side rotation after a few weeks to see if the pulling stops.

After the job was done, it still pulls left, but the numbers are now at least to spec and as even as it could get.

A week later I had a courtesy check of my vehicle and they saw 2 tires (LF and RR) were wearing unevenly (obviously from before the alignment was done).

Based on the above info and new alignment spec changes, would you still rotate these to their opposite sides? I thought right turns were more common and so I shouldn't be rotating a worn tire to the right. Also I'm not sure if the LF wear is on the inside or the outside (which would remain inside/outside if rotated, just on the other side of the car).

 

[mindless1]

How many miles on them?
Did you have an alignment done when they were first put on and did they pull before or after that?

Before the alignment was done and you were told there is no warranty, you should have left and had it done elsewhere. They may be more prone to pulling but to me that seems more like poor quality control.

You should have swapped the front left and right to see if it pulls same direction or the other direction. Same direction = vehicle, other direction = tires.

Immediately after the alignment was done and it was still pulling, you should have swapped the tires left to right. If it still pulls the same way then the alignment is not correct no matter what they state. It could be that they adjusted it as far as they could but suspension damage prevented it from being enough, but I suspect it's the tires if as you mentioned, many people have this issue. This means you need some if not all of them replaced.

The worst thing to do is keep driving on them so the more unevenly they wear, the more the tire company can try to claim a bad alignment. I'm suggesting that depending on how long, how many miles, you may have waited too long and let both the tire company and alignment place off the hook by not determining who is to blame.

If a bad tire is causing it to pull to the side and you switch sides and it pulls the other way, you're still unevenly wearing the same area, not evening out the wear. Anyway for now I would rotate front to back and keep an eye on the wear, if it is too late to seek tire replacement.

 

[NutBucket]

Basically you're hosed. The tires wore unevenly so now the alignment is correct there's not much else you can do. Just keep driving it until they're shot and have the alignment checked when you replace the tires. I've learned my lesson on alignments th expensive way....though not as expensive as yours

Edit: How can you warranty an alignment? One pothole and it's shot.

 

[crashtech]

I'd put a set of Michelins on it. Tires are cheap insurance, imo.

 

[mindless1]

Edit: How can you warranty an alignment? One pothole and it's shot.

Doesn't matter, it's a customer satisfaction issue. You can warranty *anything* and it's more about piece of mind for the customer, a marketing angle how we're better than them.

How can a car drivetrain be warrantied if I decided to make a full throttle heroin run from Mexico? I'm just sayin', customers like some assurance that they can come back within some period of time if they don't achieve the result they felt they paid for. These days it may be better than having negative feedback on social media and various review sites.

 

[rh71]

There's about 20k miles on them over the last 3-4 years and I noticed it only in the last year. No I didn't have it aligned when new, but will next time. I suppose I'll just leave it if it won't wear back evenly even if swapped left/right.