I know your front tires usually wear faster than the rear. Do you gain anything by moving the front tires to the rear, after, say 15,000 miles? Or are you better off wearing out the front tires, and replacing them? Is the expense of rotating paid off bt extra wear?
One of the centurie’s big mysteries!
Rotate them every other oil change. It really does make a difference. Rotating them is not that expensive.
Yeah, it makes sense. You’ll get more mileage out of all 4 tires and save in the long run. A lot of places will perform free rotation if you bought the tires there: well at least in my location.
What expense of rotating? It takes very little know-how and effort to rotate tires. And generally speaking, it’s best to replace tires as sets of 4.
My car’s owner’s manual expressly warns against rotating the tires because the front and rear suspension geometries are different. It says it can lead to handling problems.
Now that I think about it, Fierra’s car has directional tires on each side, and the front wheels are a different diameter than the rear, so they absolutely cannot be rotated. Shame, since her tires are quite…expensive.
Of course you have to rotate the tires. How else would you even get the car to move?
What?
I find my tires last longer when rotated-- each position on the car seems to wear the tread out in a different way. It was kind of a pain on prior cars, where I did the work myself, but that also forced me to more closely examine the condition of the tires, sometimes catching damage that ordinary examinations would have missed. My current dealer does rotation for free when I bring it in for other scheduled maintenance, so I let them deal with it now.
Now if I could remember to do the whole mattress flip/rotate thing…
I do on some of my vehicles (I have 5) and others, I just don’t bother. It all depends on what they are used for, and how expensive the tires are, and what type of driving that vehicle actually gets.
That is a good point but I don’t think that is what they mean exactly. Rotating your tires is done by taking each wheel off, flipping it around backwards and putting it back on. I do it myself every 5000 miles and it seems to have huge benefits.
Whoosh.
Right back at you. Read it again. 
I knew that - I was just making a joke.
I usually rotate my tires per Shagnasty when I’m carrying top-heavy loads in my truck. The wider wheel base lets me continue to take corners dangerously fast without tipping over.
What kind of car?
On some cars the tire size is different from front to rear, and this precludes rotation. On cars that have 4 of the same size tire, I know of no car maker that warns against rotation. I have never heard of suspension geometry given as a reason to not rotate. Think about it, if you are buying 4 of the same tire, what is the difference between the ones you put on the front, and the ones you choose to put on the rear?
Maybe the word should be “revolve.” The wheels rotate on their axle but need to be revolved around the vehicle.
The next time you go to your mechanic ask to have the tires revolved. They may think you asked to have them “re-valved” so you may have to slowly explain what the hell you are going on about.
I have snow tires on the driving wheels and regular ones on the non-driven wheels, so rotating wouldn’t be a good idea. I guess I could swap left-right, but I’ve got better things to do, like post in SDMB.
Having only two snow tires is actually a bad idea. Please take a look at these videos to see the correct application for snow tires.
http://www.betiresmart.ca/video/apa.asp?printversion=yes
I have the tires on my van rotated every 5K miles, and I’ll do the Scion next oil change (next week, I think) but my husband’s Crossfire has different size tires on front and back (bigger on the back so he’s always driving downhill ) which sorta makes rotating impossible for him. And, of course, he’s got ridiculously expensive tires. Stoopit roadster.
Is "Rotating Your Tyres "some sort of euthamism for something else /
As in “Hey Baby Wanna let me rotate your tyres for Ya ?”
Err, I have tIres on my car. I tried to by tYres but they don’t sell them here in the US 
We recently discovered that the guy at the tire store had put our tires on backwards, which didn’t know was even possible.
We rotate our tires. It is beneficial to the life of the tire.