Tire Rotation

Um. I've been mucking with tires on and off since 1971.

Bias ply tires: Front to back and side to side. Plus, if you have a full-sized spare, you add it to the rotation as well, if you like.
Radial tires: Front to back and back to front. Period. No side to side stuff.

There's something about radials taking a "set". Once they have that set, moving them to other side of the car is supposed to be a bad idea.

The Prius takes only radials, as far as I know. If you've been doing your rotation trick with radials, I suspect (1) you've run through tires a lot quicker than you'd expect (increased wear) and (2) probably had reduced traction and such when you did.

KBeck

 

Yeah, swapping side to side died along with bias ply tires.

SCH-I535

 

IMHO, rotating is intended to benefit the tire shops more than it does your tires. If everything is right, and they all have the correct pressure for their load, they should wear more or less evenly. If you're paying for rotation, the odds of spending more on rotation than you save on tire life are high. If it's free, then no harm done other than the loss of time. Same for balancing, they're either running smooth or not and re-balancing doesn't benefit you unless they need it.

But that's just me, and I hate wasting time in a shop just for tires. I hate doing it myself even more. But I've always gotten better than expected mileage from tires and never rotated.

 

On front wheel drive cars the tires in the front definitely wear out much faster. Much more weight on them plus steering and pulling the vehicle along.

The only thing rear tires do on a front wheel drive vehicle is keep the rear bumper from dragging on the ground.

SCH-I535

 

I guess I've never been in love enough with a tire to care whether it lasted another 5K miles or not. But my point still stands - the odds of saving enough on tire life to justify paying for B&R is very low. At best a break-even, less if you value your time.

 

Hmm - From my daughter's 2011 Ford Fiesta manual:

 

Early radials needed Front to back only to prevent damage. (40 years ago) Toyota still seems to prefer it.

 

I have not been rotating but the front does wear out faster. On rear I must have 80000 miles on GY ComforTred but I changed out the front after 60000.

 

I usually rotate my tires about 500 times per mile, other wise I find that I don't get anywhere.


Mike

 

If you do not care if fronts wear more quickly than rears then don't bother to rotate. Most likely you will be buying two tires at a time.

I prefer to wear tires evenly and buy four tires at a time. So I rotate my tires every 5000-7500 miles and keep the tread within 1/32 between fronts and rears.

I buy my tires at Sam's Club and get free B&R.

 

Shop foreman at my Toyota dealer said they only rotate front to back and will only cross rotate if there is an alignment issue that needs to be corrected....

 

Today's non-directional tires are fine with the cross rotation method.

The rule is: Cross rotate the non-drive. I prefer to use this method for the best wear and tire life

 

Coming from a long line of Hondas, for decades they've recommended front to back and cross to front, with radials. I did that, no ill effects. With the Prius Toyota says front to back and back to front (no cross over), so I do that. Actually, our snows are directional, so it's sort of a moot point, at least with them.

Either method will work nowadays, I think. FWIW the tire manufacturers, Michelin for one, recommend cross over method with their radials. I think when radials were first introduced there were problems, or expected problems, but over time opinion has shifted, cross over is fine.