The Lemon Fool

I'm looking at a car manual, which has this advice :

To equalize tread wear, it is recommended that the tires be rotated every 10,000 km (6,500 miles) or sooner if irregular wear develops.

It is a thing that I have heard of, but never seen done, and had assumed it came from a vanished age. Does anyone still do this? What are the implications on balancing the wheels?

My mechanic does it. It has no implications for balancing, as that's with the wheel off the car.

JohnB wrote:My mechanic does it.

Thanks for the reply. The rotation interval I quoted (6.5k) seems a lot shorter than I would be looking for a service. Do you just have it done at a normal service interval?

genou wrote:

JohnB wrote:My mechanic does it.

Thanks for the reply. The rotation interval I quoted (6.5k) seems a lot shorter than I would be looking for a service. Do you just have it done at a normal service interval?

I had a Rav4, for which the manual recommended that the tyres were rotated every 3,000 miles.

The rule used to be that tyres were rotated front to back and side to side, to even out wear. But many modern tyres are designed to roll in one direction only, which restricts rotation to front to back on each side.

It's not clear what would happen if the tyre was fitted so that it rolls backwards, but I'm guessing it might affect handling or water dispersal.

Watis

Rightly or wrongly I have never rotated tyres in over 40 years of driving
and have never noticed anthing wrong with them
and in my BMW manual there is no mention of doing that
It may be a BMW "thing"
https://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=749962

There'll be a Mork along soon to confirm or deny this, but ISTR some 4x4 drive systems beingvery sensitive to wheels of differing diameters due to tyre wear.

Also I've heard it is to avoid the situation of (say) 2mm on the driven wheels and 5mm on the other axle, which can cause problems in low grip emergencies.

But not something I've done routinely, especially as several of my cars have had directional tyres AND different sized wheels front and back.

Paul

Watis wrote:The rule used to be that tyres were rotated front to back and side to side, to even out wear....

You can sometimes find that the front tyres were more on one side than the other an the rear were more on the opposite side. This is often due to the tracking being slightly out though, and better tackled (IMHO) by getting it adjusted.

...But many modern tyres are designed to roll in one direction only, which restricts rotation to front to back on each side.

It's not clear what would happen if the tyre was fitted so that it rolls backwards, but I'm guessing it might affect handling or water dispersal.

I think that once a tyre has rolled for a long time in one direction, or has been designed to roll in one preferred direction, then reversing the direction reverses the stress on the sidewalls. Tyrewall failure could be what happens

Breelander wrote:

Watis wrote:The rule used to be that tyres were rotated front to back and side to side, to even out wear....

You can sometimes find that the front tyres were more on one side than the other an the rear were more on the opposite side. This is often due to the tracking being slightly out though, and better tackled (IMHO) by getting it adjusted.

...But many modern tyres are designed to roll in one direction only, which restricts rotation to front to back on each side.

It's not clear what would happen if the tyre was fitted so that it rolls backwards, but I'm guessing it might affect handling or water dispersal.

I think that once a tyre has rolled for a long time in one direction, or has been designed to roll in one preferred direction, then reversing the direction reverses the stress on the sidewalls. Tyrewall failure could be what happens

I seem to remember my dad telling me the nearside tyres tended to wear out quicker than the offside, especially if you drove a lot in towns with lots of roundabouts.

Because roundabouts make cars steer around bends to the right more than bends to the left.

Personally, I drive a car to get me from A to B and a few interesting places in between. I have never in 50 years of driving ever bothered with this sort of thing and I have been quite conscientious about getting my cars serviced when required.

Forget this idea and just enjoy!

Dod

I looked into this for BMWs and on some models the type of suspension they have makes rotation redundant - phew !

I rotate my tyres every 3 metres or so. If they don't rotate they develop flat spots and a lot of smoke.

I've never ever rotated the wheels on my cars and have never experienced uneven tyre wear.

Note: It can't be done
* where the front & rear wheels are different sizes. Or
* Where the the tyres are directional.

Which applies to many performance vehicles.

Black Circles have a fairly complicated flow chart of what tyres to rotate where https://www.blackcircles.com/helpcentre ... e-rotation

I've never done it though. I actually prefer not to have to replace all tyres at once. And I don't drive near enough to the "edge" for it to matter that, for example, the front tyres suddenly transition from having least tread to having most tread.

Scott.

A cousin used to be a motorway cop, and he always used to say that your rear tyres should have more tread than your fronts. That's because a rear-wheel blowout at speed is more dangerous than a burst front tyre. That would be why the books used to say that you should always have a new pair of tyres put on the rear wheels, and rotate the part-worn rears to the front.

Watis wrote:It's not clear what would happen if the [directional] tyre was fitted so that it rolls backwards, but I'm guessing it might affect handling or water dispersal.

Both of those. I've bored this forum already with the story of how I drove all across France, unaware that a tyre bay had fitted my directional Michelins inside out (and possibly out of anti-anglo spite, given how many other things they'd accidentally got wrong ).

In fact the car felt fine on the motorway, but if I'd had a prang I expect my insurance company would have been onto it in an instant.

The water dispersal is the main issue, as far as I know. But it wouldn't surprise me to hear that some tyres' casings are braced more strongly against one direction of rotation?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:A cousin used to be a motorway cop, and he always used to say that your rear tyres should have more tread than your fronts. That's because a rear-wheel blowout at speed is more dangerous than a burst front tyre. That would be why the books used to say that you should always have a new pair of tyres put on the rear wheels, and rotate the part-worn rears to the front.

On well over half a million miles of driving, I've only ever had one blowout at any speed. It was the rear wheel and allowed me to pull over without any drama.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:A cousin used to be a motorway cop, and he always used to say that your rear tyres should have more tread than your fronts. That's because a rear-wheel blowout at speed is more dangerous than a burst front tyre. That would be why the books used to say that you should always have a new pair of tyres put on the rear wheels, and rotate the part-worn rears to the front.

On well over half a million miles of driving, I've only ever had one blowout at any speed. It was the rear wheel and allowed me to pull over without any drama.

Scott.

Not sure why a rear blowout is worse than front
Scott pulled over with no trouble

Years ago I had a front blowout on the nearside which suddenly dragged me from the fast lane to the hard shoulder
very luckily there was no-one on my inside

PS Seems Scott was luckier than me

https://www.quora.com/Which-is-more-dan ... e-rear-one

Given the number of cars I see with badly damaged wheel rims where they have been scraped or have hit the kerb.......it's tyre sidewall damage which should be taken seriously, at least as much as tyre wear.

I don't rotate the tyres, but I do tend to get them swapped front to back and back to front when, on a front wheel drive car, the front tyres are down to about half their tread, and that is simply because I prefer to change all four tyres at once so want them all needing to be changed at the same time.

AF62 wrote:I don't rotate the tyres, but I do tend to get them swapped front to back and back to front when, on a front wheel drive car, the front tyres are down to about half their tread, and that is simply because I prefer to change all four tyres at once so want them all needing to be changed at the same time.

Just out of interest, how much do they charge you for a four wheel rotation?

BJ

I used to do this on my old BMW as I swapped in/out summer to winter tyres. It was heavy on the rear tyres and rotating them equalised the tyre wear over their lifetime. Only downside was all 4 had to be replaced at the same time which was a big credit card dent.