Recommended tire rotation

Over the years and many vehicles I routinely rotated tires on FWD vehicles every 10 - 15K to even out front to rear tire wear over the life of the set, and even cross rotated on older RWD with bias belted to replace the fronts with the better outer edged rears.

When living in the NY-NJ area my vehicles required realignment at least once every 2 years because of all the damn potholes and beat up roadways.....since living in the MD-WV-VA area with well maintained roads I haven't hit a pothole or had need for an alignment in years........the vehicles go as straight the day they are traded as when they were new......if I have to head back North I lease a rental and don't bother with dodging potholes or torn up roads.

GM recommends tire rotation on Avys every 6K miles. Maybe I'm missing something but I have never rotated the tires on the Avys or felt there was a need to. My '07 was traded with over 40K on the original tires and there was no cupping, feathering, or out of balance of the tires.....the edges on the fronts were worn a little more than the rear but almost no discernible difference in overall wear. Ditto with the '12 at over 20K...rides smooth as silk with no vibration in 2WD or 4WD......and as long as the vehicles go straight as an arrow on the road crest with no tire balance vibration I don't plan on rotating them without a good reason to do so, if there was a huge difference in front to rear wear.....I'd just change all at once since even in a RWD vehicle I don't want tires with worn edges on the drive wheels anymore than on the steering wheels.

Is there a rationale for requiring such as short 6K tire rotation......since absent road damage a correctly aligned Avy seems easily capable of at least 40K without rotation

They want to have you bring to them and when they rotate the tires they get to inspect brakes and steering/suspension and try to upsell you. I worked for Goodyear for about 8 years and I never recommended or did my rotations more often then at about 10k miles. If I was you I would do a rotation when you want but to never rotate I feel is not the way to go. It gives me a chance to look at things and inspect the tires up close.

I always thought the GM recommended tire rotation was a bit short at 6K - but I'm not an engineer or a mechanic, so what do I know?  In my old M-van (GM Safari), all the weight was over the front end, so those front tires saw a lot of abuse.  I tried to rotate them to the rear at least once during the season.

Living in southern Ontario, I drive about half the year on Winter Tires and the other half on All Seasons.  I live in the country, but I work mostly in the big city, where they have potholes the size of some Japanese cars.  As a result of this, I get a wheel alignment done at each change of the rubber.  Not much of a surprise, but the alignment is always off.  I drive as easy as I can, but traffic can be brutal and the road construction seems constant.  Sometimes you don't have much of a choice trying to go around something...

In the spring, I'll put the all-season ones back on the truck, and just change their position from the last time they were used -  back-to-front.  That's about it for my tire rotation system.  I guess I drive about 20-25K miles a year, and my tire wear seems about even on all four...

Michael

Pretty easy for me, spring when I put the summer wheels on fall when I put the winter wheel on. Just mark them with chalk when you take them off.

MS03 2500 said:

Pretty easy for me, spring when I put the summer wheels on fall when I put the winter wheel on. Just mark them with chalk when you take them off.

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x2  Actually, I'm now starting to rotate my tires at each oil change.  Be careful with the warranties.  Some tire warranties require rotation every 5,000.  I'v e never made a warranty claim on tires but it's something to consider.

This can be a can of worms issue, but ultimately, it is all about your familiarity with your roads, the feel of the vehicle, and general experience to have that 6th sense for brake pedal, u-joints, and other odd points of origin to recognize if you are having a tire issue when you begin to realize something is not right.

Visual tread wear is not a very perceptible item for us to be on top of. Sure, we take a quick look at the driver's side tires for pressure appearance, but when we do the gauge test, it is 5 to 10# PSI lower than we expected.

Cupping and edge wear sneaks up in a manner that we initially perceive, but end up putting off until a more convenient time that ends up being much longer that it should have been.

My oil changes always offer the rotation. Unfortunately, they have turned up items that I would not have known as early if I had not consented/requested the rotation. Sharp objects in the tread or, ugly cracks/bubbles on the interior sidewalls.

I believe it was mentioned earlier, it is always good to have another set of Vigilant/Diligent Eyes on items that we see all the time but fail to register for obvious wear & tear.

Bottom line, I doubt that frequent rotations would be harmful if they are not an additional cost. On the other hand, it may end up being a greater additional cost with & without them.

I don't know for you, but I try to do the best for me. I just hate surprises when they go bad.

That's why I don't worry about it, I don't switch them side to side. In Michigan BF Goodrich KOs on the stock rims winter, Summer Michelin LTX M/S2 on Hummer 2 wheels.

I rotate mine almost every oil change. It's been quite a few years now that the tire manufacturers have indicated it's OK to cross-rotate radial tires so I also added that into my routine. One thing I will add is that it's more important to rotate tires more often that have an aggressive tread pattern as that will help to keep them from cupping on the outer tread edges.

I don't rotate tires as often as I should.  My winter tires start their lives in the back then move to the front when the one's in the front need to be replaced, keeping the ones with the most winter tread in the back for my 2x4 Z66.  The summer tires I will switch back to front and front to back when I put them back on next spring.  I actually bought a special tire marking "pencil" from summit to mark their position when I took them off (2 days ago).  Those tires are directional so I can't switch them from side to side without taking them off of the wheels.  The Z71 doesn't get many miles on it - I should be rotating those but I haven't since I put them on last summer but I don't think we've put 5,000 miles on them yet.  The vette has the same tire size all around, I'll probably rotate those before spring.  Its tires aren't directional but are set up to have an inside side and an outside side making them easy to rotate from side to side.  I think we rotated the Kia's tires a couple of times before replacing them around 40K miles.

Been my habit for many, many years to rotate every 10K miles while checking for abnormal wear patterns a few times in between. I also don't cross rotate. I would if it looked/became necessary, but haven't had to. Also, not had to do an alignment on anything we've owned for for well over 10 years. Don't have really messed up road issues to deal with, though.

raiderron said:

They want to have you bring to them and when they rotate the tires they get to inspect brakes and steering/suspension and try to upsell you. I worked for Goodyear for about 8 years and I never recommended or did my rotations more often then at about 10k miles. If I was you I would do a rotation when you want but to never rotate I feel is not the way to go. It gives me a chance to look at things and inspect the tires up close.

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This why I've been dealing with the same family shop (just started third generation) for about 40 years and will never use G##### or L## S@@@@.
When I send in the wife or princess in with their car if they find anything on inspection they have me call or I will go in.
They are the ones that caught the bad tires.

JVZL1 said:

This why I've been dealing with the same family shop (just started third generation) for about 40 years and will never use G##### or L## S@@@@.
When I send in the wife or princess in with their car if they find anything on inspection they have me call or I will go in.
They are the ones that caught the bad tires.

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Perfect, find a shop you trust and stick with them unless you can do yourself. Always better that way.

raiderron said:

They want to have you bring to them and when they rotate the tires they get to inspect brakes and steering/suspension and try to upsell you. I worked for Goodyear for about 8 years and I never recommended or did my rotations more often then at about 10k miles. If I was you I would do a rotation when you want but to never rotate I feel is not the way to go. It gives me a chance to look at things and inspect the tires up close.

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Been rotating tires on most vehicles all my life and do it at 10K routinely on the FWD Mailbu, but been lucky with even wheel wear on the Avys....even run my hands around the tread area to check for feathering and de-pebble the treads......besides they get replaced at 40K even if not down to the wear bars. As for checking the vehicle condition, every 3K oil/filter change the underbelly components gets an inspection including brake shoes , sensors, seals, etc and the zerks get a light pump of grease.