Rotating tires... What's wrong with this ?
 

I know there are lots of guys that rotate their tires really often, and I'm sure it can't hurt anything.

But for a long time.... in fact, for probably the last 20 years, of my 27 years of driving, I have gotten into this habit of driving until the fronts are down to about 30% life left on them. At that point, the rears are usually at about 60% (regardless of the vehicle, be it a light truck, or a compact car). I then rotate them, for the one and only time I ever will, putting the 60% tires on the front, and the 30% to the back. Then I just run em' down until they are all pretty much gone, at very close to the same time, and then get a new set.

I really haven't had any unusual problems with my tires, nor less than expected tread life.... sometimes even better than expected.

So, what would the advantages be for me to rotate my tires every 5K or 10K ?

Just curious,
Fish

No offense (seriously), but your logic of "it works fine" is not true.

The point of rotating often is that tires will be seeing different types of pressure (especially on the outer corners) based on what specific part of the vehicle they are on. Likewise, rears on a RWD vehicles will get more of center wear from acceleration.

Similarly, vehicles are often out of alignment...even by a little bit, and heck even on purpose at times. This also leads to uneen wear. So, by rotating them often you keep the wear from turning into a "wear pattern" and keep the tires as close to evenly worn as possible.

If you rotate your tires every 5k miles you WILL get better tread life out of the tires.

Hope this helps :thumbsup:

Well....instead of running 30-60 and 60-30, you could be running 50-50 all the time. Safer, and probably save some fuel, too.

and it looks better!:thumbsup:

Well....
 

Yes Lumadar, my logic is based on 20 years of experience, on all different vehicles, and in my personal experience, has been quite true.

Jward, I won't doubt that having 50/50 tread might give you some "very small degree" of better handing, and maybe on wet or icy roads, having the 50%ers on the front might be a tiny bit safer than your 30%ers on the front, and 60%ers on the rear.
On that note, I have actually swapped my tires just a little sooner, to accomadate for the rainy season.... But in Cali, it only rains in the Winter, and in my part of the state, snow is almost unheard of ! (Thank God).

But as far as mileage goes, I can't imagine having a set of 30/60 tires on your vehicle, as opposed to 50/50 tires, would give you any more (or less, depending on how you look at it) MPG's..... Like more than than a few tenths of 1 MPG.

Most of my tires have lasted me 50K or close. Right now I have a set of low profile Nexen N3000's on my little car, that are at 31K... They are only supposed to be 30K tires, yet I think I will get 40K to 45K out of them. Granted, it's a light car, but then I drive the thing like a mad man.... Braking for turns ? Why would I want to do that ? :-)

Without having experienced any real problems, I just don't see any reason to rotate more than once or twice in the lifetime of a tire.

Fish

Hey trimble, now that's the one small point that I won't argue :-)

And with doing rotations, if you have tires with deep treads, and run a 4x4, less likely to have a problem with different rpms between front and rear.

That's interesting....
 

I can totally see that.... But of course I've never had, nor will I probably ever have a 4wd. Don't get me wrong, I think 4wd trucks are cool, but with as little as I'd ever use it for what it was built for, it wouldn't be worth the $, the extra weight, and the decreased mileage.... just speaking for myself.

But then actually, I've always thought it would be cool to have an old, but solid beater 4wd, just to go out and "play with it"..... then not even have to worry about washing it when I got back to the house :-)

Fish

Money!
 

Rotating my tires every 10 to 12,000 miles I can get 140,000 miles out of my tires thereby saving me money on having to buy a set every 50,000 miles :cool:

Ah Fish, I ain't saying that you'll see huge gains in mpg like with the Tornado, TB spacer, CIA, or gutting your cats. :lol:

But hey, I get lazy with the rotation thing, myself.


Just stands to reason that proper maintenace increases longevity.

:beers:

Hey guys.....
 

Mitch150.... 140,000 miles !!! Holy #$@% ! What are those.... like the "solid rubber type ? ;-) I used to think I was doing good to get 60K out of my BFG street tires, but that's the most I ever got.

Hey jward, yea' well, I really don't have any excuses either. My mechanic would rotate my tires every 3K (along with my oil changes... which I'm religious about) if I asked him to, and probably would not even charge me. But I always give him a $5 or $10 or more tip (depending on if he does more than just an oil change) anyway.

Anyway, I might rotate my "expensive" BFG's 2 or 3 times.... instead of once, then decide for the next set if it was worth it :-) LOL

Peace,
Fish

No offense, but I think you missed the point of what I explained. You also mentioned years of experience and how it "worked" for you, but you don't have a control variable to see how well it really "worked" or not.

How do you know that you wouldn't have gotten 70-90k out of those same tires?

X2 Lumadar's right . :thumbsup:

Chris, rotate your tires like they are supposed to be. Do you keep factory fuel filters on the vehicle for the life of it as well? :lol:

BFG all terrain T/As are the best tire on the road, but that's just my opinion. I have over 90,000 miles on the set that's on my truck now. They are well worth the money! Rotate,rotate,rotate

My lowered truck eats through tires like you wont believe, I rotate every 3-5k religiously.

My first set of factory generals lasted 23 or 24k
My second set of Goodyear SA forteras lasted 26k

and now im a couple thousand into my new General Grabber GHP at 59xxx total vehicle mileage