Tire Rotation

I have noticed that tire manufacturers are demanding short rotation intervals on tires for which they claim an unrealistically long service life. When the tire fails to perform as advertised they can point to your failure to rotate the tires as per their schedule and use this to deny warranty for less than advertised tire life.

I purchased two GM jacks from a wrecker ($5.ea) so I did not need to remove the jack from the spare mount and could jack up two wheels at a time. I also purchased an extra set of wheel rims ($25. ea) So I can keep two sets of tires, one newer set for winter and one more worn set that I use for summer. Use anti-seize lubricant on the wheel studs and the $20 is added to the money I save by changing oil myself. Recheck torque after 50 miles. There is no real saving but I get to inspect the car regularly and the saving is in other repair and inspections saved. I do not rotate tires at

3000 miles as it is more of a seasonal change job with rotation at mid season. The rotation interval ends up more like 5,000 miles. I did get 85,000 miles out of the stock Firestones that everyone here seems to hate, I thought this was pretty good service.

Just my .02

While 3000 miles is a short interval it is by no means outrageous. If you'd like all four tires to wear evenly and not develope odd wear patterns then you should probably rotate the tires every 5000 miles or less. It's preferable to have tires that have the same amount of wear at each corner of the car and then replace them 4 at a time. Also, an alignment check every 15000 or when the car starts wandering wouldn't hurt.

Tire Rotations = Brake Inspections and Even Tire Wear. 3000 miles is a little much even for me. Every 6000 miles (every other oil change) is a good time for a rotation.

15,000 ????? with all the pot holes in Virginia if I only "checked" alignment every 15,000 miles I'd need new tires every 15,000 miles. I'm figuring I've spent more money on alignments than all other services combined - about $80 a throw at least once a year for 11 years almost exceeds the cost of both alternators, all 3 batteries, 6 tires, 2 T-fluid flushes, 2 radiator flushes, every oil change, a handful of gas and air filters, 2 sets of pads, and a break shoe in a pear tree. I've wondered if it would be cheaper to just align it only when I got new tires and replace them when they wore out from mis-alignment.

The only advantage I see from rotating is all 4 will need replacing at the same time so there's no confusion later about how old the replacements are or where you got them. Would you get even wear by just rotating front to back (but not side to side)? Ron- 94 SL1 (considering a Cypress Green 06 VUE)