Can rotating the tires extend their life by 20%?

Personally, I'd pay the extra but maybe your back is stronger than mine? Hmmm, now that I think about it, if you can stand and walk unassisted then your back must be stronger than mine.

A jack, lug wrench and set of jackstands is all you need, it's fairly hard work but not complicated.

An aside on tire rotation, Goodyear says it's fine to rotate tires, Pirelli says a tire must never be moved, once mounted it stays in that position for as long as it lasts. Pick the one you like. ;-)

Tire rotations are an opportunity to inspect the conditions of the brake pads and calipers, shocks, and covers of the rear suspension shafts.

All of these are safety and reliability items and can be major money and inconvenience once they are shot because a problem was not spotted early.

Check with them. It also usually included balancing the tires and road hazard insurance.

Look in the ownwers manual. It usally involves four or five nuts and a jack to hold up the end of the car without the wheel.

A briskly-driven Miata wears its rear tires about twice as fast as the fronts, especially ultra high-performance tires (which the G-Force Sports claim to be, though I have my doubts) . If you aim to replace all four as a set, rotation is a must; every 3000 miles should be about right if they're really a soft HP tire. I have the shop rotate while it's up on the lift at every oil change, and the total bill is $35 including a Mazda filter.

Little effort in learning--it's about as complicated as picking your nose. Moderate effort in playing pit crew. You'll want a floor jack, jackstands, and a torque wrench (80 ft-lb for the Miata lugs).

Very True.

If you aim to replace all four as a set, rotation is a must; every 3000 miles should be about

Not a bad idea

Lanny, it seems that way to you cause you've been doing it forever but remember this person has not! There are quite a few little things they'll need to do correctly (and not forget to do!) to be driving smoothly and safely. Don't take it lightly.

Be smart, Chris

99BBB

Are you in an area where you would use snow tires on a yearly basis ?

I wasn't suggesting that a normal human is born with innate knowledge of tire rotation (or even nose picking), merely that, like booger dredging, there are only a few things one needs to know, and those are easily mastered. If the original poster would like a detailed tutorial, I'll happily oblige (and watch my buddies Leon and Pat nitpick it to death). A better idea might be to join the local Miata club and get a hands-on lesson from an experienced club member.

Or, like me, find a trustworthy independent garage and pay them to do it.

Jusrt be sure you don't have asymmetric tires (i.e., those with a specified direction of rotation), in which case you should only swap front and rear, and never move the tires to the opposite side.

-- Larry

It depends on the tire: if you have asymmetrical thread, you can swap all you like. If you have a directional thread, you can only swap on the same side of the car (front to rear).

I've been told that tires having spun in one direction for a long time tend not to like being spun in the other direction and wear quicker therefore. Don't know what to think of it, but then pretty much all my tires have a directional thread, so I don't have to have an opinion on that.

My daily drivers are swapped twice a year (winter and summer tires) and I like to take the opportunity to take a look at the stuff behind.

cu .\\arc

Er... no. Reread, Pirelli says you may NOT swap front to rear, side to side or any other way. Goodyear says you may swap any tire to any position. It's not a matter of tread, it's a matter of manufacturer.

My Goodyear F1's have a big arrow on them that says 'rotation'. And it says clearly on them that you are not allowed to mount them so that they rotate the other way. So, yes, you can swap front to rear, but you cannot swap left to right.

cu .\\arc

Bzzzt. Wrong way round. In most cases, asymmetric tires are directional tires.

You can swap symmetric tires any way you like.

-- Larry

Not at all.

Here's an asymmetric tire:

Here's a directional tire:

No, you cannot. A directional tire has a given sense of rotation. If you swap it and make it rotate backwards, it will fail very miserably. An asymmetric tire doesn't mind the sense of rotation, it only has to be on the rim the right way - it has 'outside' and 'inside' markers.

I've been told asymmetrics are preferred by car manufacturers for one reason: tires are put on wheels entirely automated. It's reasonably straightforward for the roboter to be fed asymmetrics in a consistent manner. However directionals would need to be mounted differently for left and right side wheels, therefore requiring the effort to distinguish between two kinds of wheel/tire combinations.

There exist some directional and asymmetric tires, mostly for high performance cars. Tire dealers don't like them because they have two stock items (left and right). IIRC the 1980s high power Corvettes had those. Because the car had different tire sizes front and rear, you actually had 4 different non swappable tires on it.

cu .\\arc

Thanks all for the replies. In the last few days, the price gap between ordering online+installation and the local Discount Tire narrowed to about half of what it was, for some reason (~420 vs. 455 now). So I reckon I'll go to DT and get the free rotations.

Lanny (and others), I may still take you up on that rotation tutorial at some point, but for now, can you recommend any specific things I should be looking for in the way of tools that are both good and easy to use? Maybe a compact Formula One-style lift would be too much to hope for, but like, what's a good jack and a good wrench, etc.?

Remove This, around Seattle we get a few spells of winter during the year, but not full-on for three months. And I have alternate wheels. I thought about getting good all-season tires, but I'll probably go with summer tires now since they're good for about 85% of the year. Come winter I'll check the weather sites and go with other transport when I have to.

ZZ Eric

Go to Sears. You can't go wrong with Craftsman tools.

Snap-on is great too, but I love Craftsman, which I think is a better value since they generally costs less and do exactly what I need them to. I had to use a "Husky" ratchet set not long ago and I can tell the difference immediately. There is also a world of difference between a Craftsman floor jack and that POS model you see on the shelf at Autozone for $40.00. (or less)

I took a Craftsman screwdriver in a while back that I used over 25 years ago as a chisel for rock hunting. It was appropriated from dad's tool box along with his hammer, which I also promptly ruined.

Broken tip, busted up plastic handle from hammering on it, and they traded it and the hammer in for replacements without any questions.

Pat

Pat wrote:> Snap-on is great too, but I love Craftsman, which I think is a better

Oh, yeah, gotta love Craftsman. I found a 1/4" drive ratchet lying on the side of a road and used it for several years before the whole ratchet mechanism popped out. And of course one of the parts immediately vanished into limbo. Took it into the local Sears and they handed me a new one.

That was over 20 years ago, and I'm still using that replacement.

Iva & Belle.) '90B Classic Red.) #3 winkin' Miata

Eric -

Even though you are going to have DT mount, balance, rotate, etc. I would still advise you to purchase a torque wrench and a deep-well socket matching your lugs.

Anytime you have removed and replaced the tires you will want to re-torque the lugs after about 30-50 miles.

- L

Excellent! Customer service is #1 for me in almost any situation where I am spending money. I will bet that you have purchased Craftsman tools since then, though a freebie is always nice. I wish that I had a Sears closer to me. Maybe I will soon.

Pat

snipped-for-privacy@spymac.com wrote in news:1174678740.590886.110010 @d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

I got an inexpensive (about $30) 2 1/4 ton Craftsman floor jack that came w/ a pair of jack stands. I believe this is it (currently listed at $55 tho it goes on sale regularly):

950138000 It works fine. I swap summer/winter wheels myself. The first couple times I did it one at a time w/ the in-trunk jack (obviously, not an option for rotating). So much easier/quicker w/ the floor jack & stands.

One trick for speeding up the process if you have a cordless drill: Get a socket attachement bit for your drill. I THINK I use a 1/2" socket - don't remember for sure - it's a tiny bit loose, but there's no need for a perfect fit. Once you use the lug wrench to loosen the lugs a bit, swich to the drill rather than spinning them off by hand (going back on, use the drill to get them semi-tight, then switch back to the lug wrench or torque wrench if you have that). It won't do the whole job for you like having an air wrench, but it probably trims a few minutes off the job.

-Scott