forester tire rotation

Your owner's manual has a section on that, with pictures even.

Assuming uni-directional tires:

4-tire rotation: every 5,000 miles, front tires go to the back and vice versa. Some people do the "X" pattern rotation, but that requires that the tires be remounted so the cool white letters remain on the outside.

Mike, Per owners manual (02 Forester) rotate every 7,500 miles and use a same side front to back pattern.

Personally, I include my full sized spare in the rotation, and use a modified front to back/ cross pattern. i.e. Spare> RR, RR> RF, RF> LR, LR> LF, LF> Spare, and hope to avoid any "perceived" problems by rotating the tires a little more often at 5,000 miles (plus it's easier for me to keep track of).

If in doubt, follow the manual.

Tom

I wish I had done that instead of winding up with a brand new spare and four tires with half the tread worn off.

Putting the spare in the rotation means that if someday you have to use it there's no worry about it having a different circumference than the other three.

I don't know why the manual doesn't recommend the 5-tire rotation. My guess is that some other Subaru model had a donut spare, necessitating the 4-tire rotation, and some lamebrain tech writer just copied over the instructions from that manual to the Forester.

That's a matter of opinion. . .

;-)

- Greg

--

1976 Cadillac Fleetwood Formal Limousine (for sale: Audi 200 Turbo Quattro sedan 5-speed2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue2001 Chevy Astro AWD (wife's)2004 Forester 2.5XT 5-speed (coming soon!)

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John, Thanks for not jumping down my throat on my choice of tire rotation. Many, if not most, people use the method you use. The important message is to rotate the tires. Something I rarely did before I bought my Forester.

As I typed this I did start wondering about the use of uni-directional / asymmetrical tires that are on the market. Rotation is not the issue (same side) but the spare tire. Would you now need to have two spares, one for each side?

Hmm...? Tom

I wouldn't go so far as to say most, many people just take it to the garage as say 'rotate the tires' and they get rotated however the person doing the work feels like doing it. Many more just do a front to back, back to front rotation, and there are several other options out there as well.

I would think most people with "directional" tires just have 1 'non-directional' spare, and don't include it in their rotation.

I go clockwise every 5000mi. and include the spare. Unless you use one direction tires. (foresters don't come with them) Front to back never made any sense. The same tire ends up back in its original location on the next rotation. The outside (white letters) are always outside no need to remount.

I measure tread depth and when the front or rears show a difference of about

Is there any reason why you would you change from the recommendations in section

11-39 of the Forester Owners Manual?

Edward Hayes wrote:

Ed, My memory is a little foggy, but I seem to remember the modified X being used many moons ago on RWD cars with bias ply tires. All cars had full spares then and it was a 5 tire rotation.

I think the advent of radial tires with their 90 degree plies, along with FWD, started to change the rotation assumption. And AWD may further complicate matters with varying combinations of front/rear default power delivery.

Regardless, I got only 22K out of my OEM Bridgestones on my 00 Forester. They wore evenly and yes I rotated them per the manual. I now have 37K on the Forester and the new tires are wearing fast too.

I just replaced the V rated Bridgestones on my 02 WRX at 22K. They had about

3/32 left. I went with Pirelli P-8000 unidirectionals. They really improved handling responsiveness and removed most of the understeer. And they are much better in hard rain. We'll see how well they wear.

My car (the Forester is my wife's) has unidirectional tires AND the rears are bigger than the fronts. That pretty much does it for rotation, and there's no point in complaining about the donut spare.

So I was all ready to include my spare in my first rotation (6000 mi) on my 03 Forester. I measured the tire circumferences and found them to be within the 1/4 in spec. Then I realized that the spare has a different rim. It would work, but it would look different than the other three. Are folks who rotate in their spare dismounting the spare from the rim and swapping with one of the other tires?

Jim

Jim, It's always something. I have the stock steel wheels and the spare is a match. Did things change from '02 to '03? Wouldn't surprise me. If I had nice fancy alloy wheels, would I go to the expense of putting a matching wheel on the spare. Not likely. If my spare wheel did not match the rest of the wheels would I go through the added expense of having the tire remounted. balanced every 5-7.5K miles. Nope. The accumulated cost would probably add up to more then you would save by keeping your tire in the rotation and ready for permanent use if necessary.

Oh well, it was worth a shot.

Tom

Why not follow the manufacurers recommendations?

Tom Forsha wrote:

Bob and Tom,

I've got an 'X' model, so I have the steel rims - I won't be buying a matching one, and I also agree that the cost and effort of remounting and re-balancing at every rotation would negate the cost benefit of getting one tire's worth of wear from that spare. They must have changed things from '02 to '03. I'm guessing then that the pre-'03s also had full size spare tires?

The main reason to not follow the manufacturers' recommendation is to actually use the tread life of that brand new full size spare tire by rotating it in. When the time comes to buy new tires, save the best of the lot and that becomes the new spare. After that, only rotate the 4 new tires and only buy 4 new tires each time but at least that original spare got some use.

Call me crazy, but since they didn't match the rim on the spare, I'd almost rather have a compact spare (possibly causes problems with AWD). Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've only had 1 on the road flat tire in 20 years of driving. I've had some slow leaks but still got home on them.

Actually, this discussion brings up one more point. There is a cutout under the floor and above the spare tire where the rear privacy shade is supposed to fit for storage. The manual even says you can put it there. When I tried, it wouldn't even begin to fit - the full size spare is to fat! Maybe in earlier years the shade would fit there? I would be handy - a lot more cargo fits in the back if the shade isn't in place.

Jim

Bob, All wheel drive was completely new to me when I first got my Forester. So I read and evaluated as much readily accessible information as I could find on the subject, owners manual, news groups, tire mfg. information.

Subaru recommended front to back tire rotation (no accounting for the spare). They also recommend keeping the tires within ¼ inch circumference on all wheels.

Evaluation: Within 10K miles my 4 main tires would be worn enough that there would be more than ¼ inch difference between them and an un-used spare. Thus making the spare unsuitable for putting on the car. A catastrophic failure of one of the four main tires would result in having to buy a minimum of three new tires (includes using the still new spare to round out the set).

I also found what I believe to be reliable information, stating that there was no valid reason to keep the tires on the same side of the car (front to back rotation).

My choice was to use the spare in the rotation, so that it would always be within acceptable tolerance for use as one of the four primary tires should the need arise.

Other considerations: Using the spare in the rotation adds another 20% to the time (or mileage) before new tires would be needed. At that time you could decide between using the best of the 5 as your permanent spare or to buy 5 new tires and be ready to roll again.

Oh yea, and for me it's a lot easier to rotate the tires using the spare because I only have to get one wheel off the ground at a time.

This was my reason for not following the mfg. recommendations on "tire rotations". Don't forget I still believe in keeping the tires within the ¼ inch tolerance.

Tom