Tire Rotation, which method?

[mmntech]

I take it to my guy. Import specialist. Front to back strait swap.

 

[sdifox]

I've never been able to figure out how you get "extra mileage" out of the tires by rotating them. Yes, I understand that some of the tires will wear out quicker than the other tires. But, it seems that you should be losing material from the same tire at the same rate, i.e. the left front is going to lose 1cm of rubber thickness over 50,000 miles regardless of how the tires are rotated.

The only "benefit" that I can see is that you spread the wear among the 4 tires more evenly, so that when you need new tires, you need to replace all 4. I prefer to run them until the front tires need to be replaced. Then, I rotate the back tires to the front & put the new tires on the rear.

Front wheels are turned... That is the only thing I can think of. I do wear those out more.

 

[MadScientist]

^

Yea mostly to even the wear out but also usually the front wears more on the sides of the tires from turning and the rear a little more in the middle.

Tire wear can also be increased by the type of roads you drive. In WV you won't find many straight stretches of road. Tire shops here typically fill tires 4 psi more than the door sticker tire pressure recommendation for cars and 7 psi for pickups.

I rotate my tires about every 5000 miles and keep them a few psi over the door sticker recommendation.

 

[Raizinman]

The auto manufacturers have for quite some time recommended what they call a Modified 'X' rotate. You would rotate the RF to the RR and then next rotate, move the RR to the LF. Then LF to the LR and then include the spare tire or if your spare is not a full size tire, then LR to RF. It was claimed by General Motors that this gives the longerst life from your tires. Then when directional tires came about, they thought it was too confusing to have different rotations for different tires, and settled on just side to side witn no crossing over. This covers all tires then.

 

[exar333]

If you don't have directional tires, rotating can really make a significant difference. Also, if your car visibly eats tires in the front or back, it also would make sense to rotate as well. Really depends on your situation.