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Tire Rotation
- Thread starter Masher88
- Start date
Back when I lived in Michigan, the State Police would conduct stings where they marked the parts on old cars and then took them to repair shops. In one instance, the owners of several automatic transmission shops went to jail.
Just a thought... is this precisely the sort of place where you want to get your oil changed?
Yeah, no kiddin! I don't plan on using the free oil change, cuz they probably won't do anything!!! Ugh. can't trust anyone!!
I've never worried about rotating tires. I move the fronts to the back when they are nearly worn out - car is front wheel drive - and usually all four will be ready to be replaced when the "new" front tires are wore out. If people don't like there being different tread depths on the fronts and the backs then fine, have them rotated. Rotating tires isn't the solution to a wear problem though.
Probably not the safest thing to do is have nearly worn out tires on the back, whether the car is wrong wheel drive or not.
I have seen rear tires on wrong wheel drive cars wear funny from lack of rotation. Some cars are so light in the back end that no matter how good your shocks are there still isn't enough weight to keep the tires firmly planted to the road, which results in choppy wear across the entire tread. By the time you rotate them they sound like Super Swampers and ride like a lopsided brick because they're so choppy.
As always, ymmv.
A correction - perhaps more of a clarification.....
On FRONT wheel drive cars, the front tires wear faster because (a) they carry more weight, and (b) they are asked to both apply propulsive force and to steer. Rear tires last much longer on a FWD car because they do neither of these.
On REAR wheel drive cars, the REAR tires wear faster, especially the right rear, because weight is more evenly distributed in these cars and because due to the action of a normal RWD differential, the RR tire receives a bit more of the power when you accelerate. This normally wears the RR tire a bit faster than the LR.
In either case, rotating tires F > B and B> F evens the wear. I personally target every 5,000 miles for this. Here's a brochure with a rotation chart: Invalid Link Removed
It is also extremely important to watch your tire pressures. Low pressure will allow the outer edges of a tire to wear much faster than normal; running 6-10 PSI below the correct pressure can reduce tire life by 25%, according to one web reference I found. Low pressure also increases the tire's rolling resistance, reducing fuel mileage. Finally, a low tire handles like crap, and is dangerous if you have to make a maneuver at speed to avoid an obstacle in the road.
Here's a tire pressure trick I learned at a State Patrol instructor's school: the tire pressures listed in your owner's manual and on the door jamb sticker are a compromise between comfort and performance. They are lower than they have to be, as softer tires are more comfortable for most drivers.
On the sidewall, you'll find something like this imprinted: [Max load XXX lbs. at 36 PSI]. That means under normal driving you can run up to 36 PSI safely, regardless of what your owner's manual suggests for tire pressures.
To improve handling with a slight increase in harshness, run your tires at the maximum pressure listed on the sidewall while maintaining the F > R pressure differential in the owner's manual. In other words, if your tires show max pressure of 44 PSI and the manual says to run 30 PSI front, 32 rear, you can actually run 42 front, 44 rear. If the max pressure rating is 36 PSI, you can run 34 front, 36 rear. You may not WANT to do this if the increased pressure makes the ride too harsh, but you can always compromise and raise pressures slightly (not to the max rating) for improved handling and mileage. In no case should you exceed the max pressure rating in normal driving. Increasing pressures in this way will improve handling and help fuel mileage. Most patrol officers do this.
I've been using this trick for more than 20 years and it works great.
I get a free rotation ever 300 because I take it to the place I bought them from...but marking them...Hmmm.
Yeah, that wouldn't do at all. I've had pretty good results with wear patterns on my commuter cars; they've all been small front drivers for the past 25 years. The kind of wear pattern you've described is probably something that can't be corrected by adjustment, fortunately I haven't had to try and deal with that yet.
