I’ve never understood what the point of rotating your tires is. Theoretically, regardless of whether you rotate them every day, or never, the loss of rubber from all four tires considered together will always be constant.
Which means that, at best, rotating tires will only ensure that you have to replace all four of your tires at the same time, rather than the fronts and rear separately. But that’s about it. So why do people bother with it? As far as I can tell, it’s just a money-maker for unscrupulous dealerships and shops that take advantage of people’s ignorance.
Also, the manual for my car expressly recommends against tire rotation, because the front and rear suspension geometry is different.
Well, I don’t know, but I only came in to question the assumption that you’re giving them the same wear. I’m not sure, but I would think not if you only have front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive. Let’s see what other people say, but that’s the first thing that pops into my head.
It’s in order to ensure that you have to change them at the same time and everybody should do it.
My mechanic says they always look at the tires. If they see too-irregular wear, they do three things: make a note in the car’s “oil” card (they tie a card to the driving wheel, listing when was the last oil change, the last checkup and anything unusual another mechanic may need to know), change the tires, and check the suspension etc extra special to fix whatever caused the irregularity.
If your car is machanically sound and you but it new, your tires are probably good for about 60,000 miles. Sport tires and economy car tires can be different, but a decent, normal tire is typically a 60,000 mile tire.
If you’re a normal, consumptive American, you’re going to sell your car at 60,000 miles or so, and you’re not going to bother changing the tires. If you’ve rotated them every 10,000 miles, though, you’ve rotated them five times and spent $75 assuming rotation at $15. What did that money buy you?
Okay, you’re smarter than that. You decide to keep the car. But you still have the problem that at 60,000 you need new tires. Decent 60,000 mile tires are about $400 installed (and up). So if you’ve never rotated your tires, you pay $400. If you’ve rotated your tires, you’ve effectively paid $475.
The main reason to rotate tires is safety. Significant differences between front axle treadwear and rear axle treadwear can negatively affect handling.
Vehicle suspensions and steering systems are designed under the assumption that treadwear is essentially even on all four tires. If one axle’s tires are worn significantly more than the other axle’s, there is a measurable difference in their respective traction. In some situations, the more-worn tires can lose their grip on the road, causing a skid.
Drive axle tires (whether front or rear) wear faster than non-drive axle tires. Steering tires wear differently, and in some ways more, than non-steering tires. (Thus front tires tend to wear noticeably faster than rear tires on a front-wheel-drive vehicle.) Rotating the tires allows the wear patterns to even out in the long run. This has the added benefit of extending tead life to some degree.
Yes, it costs more to rotate tires than to not rotate them, and it’s sometimes more of a strain to replace them in sets of four than in sets of two. How much is it worth to you to not lose control and hit a tree?
Nice theories, but your all overlooking something quite obvious. Steer tires are subjected to more and different stresses and wear than fixed axle tires. Your steer tires will always wear faster than the rear tires, all things being equal. Tire rotation depends on the type of tire and the tread design. You can do it yourself, but I’d advise doing some research first. Balancing is also an important factor and this is not something that the typical car owner can do. You can extend tire life by 30% to 50% by periodic rotation and proper balancing.
Absolute – ask me sometime about the front right wheel of my truck, which once wobbled like a gimpy wheel on a grocery cart, which made the tire wear out fast, which in turn unrolled like Scotch tape on the interstate because I ignored the wobbling for a few months. True, tire rotation wouldn’t have fixed the wobbly wheel … but it would have bought me some time before the eventual high-speed tire tread unwrapping.
I agree with everything here except “steer tires will always wear faster than the rear tires.” According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, “Tires on the drive-axle of a vehicle wear down 30 percent to 100 percent faster than those on the other axle.” While steering is definitely a factor in tire wear, apparently propelling is a greater factor in terms of tread loss.
Ignoring any effects on tread life, one prime benefit to having your tires rotated now and then is that someone who looks at tires all day long is going to look at your tires.
Do you know what cupping looks like? How about feathering? If you’re like me, you have no idea what this looks like on a tire, or what it signifies. Tire Guy looks at them and can tell you that you’re over- or under-inflating your tires, or that there’s a worn part in your suspension.
A few years ago, I brought my car in for balancing as the shop I got the tires from offers lifetime balancing. Glad I did. Tire Guy brings me into the service bay and under the car and shows me how one of the front tires was worn down to the steel belting as I had a bad tie rod end, leaving the tire to rub against something it shouldn’t for many miles.
If I didn’t have the tires rotated, I would not have known that a $50 part had gone bad and was about to put my life in serious danger the next time I got onto the freeway.
Balancing is also important for safety and comfort - a tire hopping because it’s off balance will both shake you silly and be a safety hazard as it’s losing contact with the road every time it spins around. Most tire shops will “give” you a free rotation if you get your tires balanced - why not? The tires are already off the car - rotation is just putting them back in a different spot.
It’s so your tires will wear evenly. On some vehicles, it makes little difference, but on others, like pick-ups, it makes a large difference. Why, I’m not sure. The only thing I can think of is that since so much of a pickups weight is on the front of the vehicle, it causes weird wear patterns if you don’t rotate them. I see many trucks and some cars that have totally worn out tires on one end of the car while the tires on the other end look like new. Some of it may be an alignment issue, but in my opinion some of the carmakers specifications on alignments seem a little extreme to give the cars better handling. Case in point Nissans Z.
That’s not a grand idea, the tires lasting 100K.
The rubber goes kinda’ stiff and wonky after year 5 or so. Even at 18K per year, your rear tires will have lost the grip they originally had before they lose tread.
Wearing all the tires out at the same time seems much wiser. Identical tires all around is much safer in an emergency than mixed. If you replace axles two years apart, you run the risk that Goodyear will, for instance, decide to stop selling the Eagle GA, and you’ll be stuck mixing tires with uneven traction levels.
Most (all?) cars have a slight negative camber setting that gives good handling but wears out one edge of the tires (see Camber, Castor, toe). If you can rotate the tires so that the new wear will be on the part of the tire with more tread, then you will have a longer life for the tire.
