Tire rotation policies. What's to be afraid of?

I've heard from at least three sources that you ought to get your tires rotated every

6,000 miles. Why?

Is it for people that hard corner their tires? Or maybe for older cars that have worn out suspension pieces?

I drive like a grandpa and last rotated my tires

16,000 miles ago. My car has 73,000 miles on it and I haven't had a problem yet.
Reply to
geo pearl
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it's an amusing "american" thing. vehicles sold in europe don't have the same rotation recommendations. and american [gm, frod] vehicles sold in europe don't either. it's all lawyer-speak for "this way we can't get sued". and it's retarded because each time you rotate, you lose tire contact area and thus traction - it's actually less safe to rotate.

Reply to
jim beam

Depends on the car. If you have something like a Chevy impala (the newer FWD ones) you definitely need to rotate the tires regularly if you don't want to go through tires like you would on a BMW. The Chev will wear the outsides of the front tires even faster than a Bimmer wears the insides of the rears, just without all that lovely ride quality, handling, and precise steering.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Not too smart. Screw up the front tires with bad alignment or improper inflation. Don't fix the front alignment or inflation issue. Put the back tires on the front and screw them up too. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Reply to
Vic Smith

I've seen that wear pattern on too many of them to not have to assume that the issue is the fundamental suspension design and/or factory alignment specifications, not something out of spec on one or two particular vehicles.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

I saw the same thing on my 93 Corsica. No matter how perfect the shop got the front end it just ground the outside of the fronts off. Even high inflation pressures still resulted in the same outside wear pattern.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Sometimes the interplay of a particular design of tire and suspension will result in a wear pattern that is not even visible, although you may be able to feel it with the palm of your hand. Trouble is, if you don't rotate them you'll wind up with that kind of wear pattern that's too worn into the tires to wear away when you do rotate them. So if you'd rather be safe then sorry, take advantage of the free tire rotations most places offer when you have bought the tires from them. But you are correct, there are some cars that you could leave the tires on their whole life and never rotate them and they would be fine. It's just that the only way to find out is to risk a set of tires.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

My datsun independent rears used to wear on the outsides.

In all the years, 20k miles would be good for me on tires. The datsun with hp tires, lucky to get 10k. Most of my driving, stop and go, up and down hills, lots of curves.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

but any tire gets a wear pattern, even if the alignment is perfect. that wear pattern can actually increase braking and traction. to rotate that out so you have lower traction and less effective braking makes absolutely no sense. that's why cars in other markets specify /not/ to rotate. indeed, many higher end cars, you /can't/ rotate because tires are both different sizes and directional. you never hear people bleating about not being able to rotate those things just because some corporate ass-covering lawyer blew smoke up their ass.

how is it "safer" to lower your traction and braking?

there's no "risk" other than having 4 worn-out tires rather than just two.

Reply to
jim beam

shop spec sometimes needs to be "modified". should have put it out of spec by a few minutes and "tuned" it like that.

Reply to
jim beam

indeed.

Reply to
jim beam

to void tire warranty "cause tire was not rotated"

tire rotation is important on subaru and other permanent awd cars.

On mono wheel drivers you can just forget about it.

Reply to
AD

that is correct - not for the tires or traction, but because differentiated wear rates create excessive load on the transmission system.

tire rotation is all too frequently used as an excuse to avoid fixing an underlying problem. "averaging" that problem over four tires looks much less serious than allowing it to run on one or two and not fixing it.

Reply to
jim beam

i should add: "on roads". off road, this becomes irrelevant.

Reply to
jim beam

"Mono wheel drivers" ?

How many three wheel Morgans are on the road in your area nowadays?

Reply to
AMuzi

"two wheel drivers with open differential" sounds better to ya? bottom line is: one wheel slips and you are pretty much stuck unless you have a newer car that breaks a spinning wheel on your behalf in which case you get a 1.35356123646237523 wheel driver or something.

You get a mechanical or a limited slip differential anywhere (front, center, rear) then we can talk about "two wheel drive". Otherwise it's no more than a run of the mill marketing nonsense.

Reply to
AD

jim beam: "it's an amusing "american" thing.  vehicles sold in europe don 't have the same rotation recommendations.  and american [gm, frod] vehicles sold in europe don't either.  it's all lawyer-speak for "this way we can't get sued".  and it's retarded because each time you rotate, you"

I thought rotation was encouraged due to proliferation of 60/40 weight dist rib front-wheel drive cars.

Was I naive?

Reply to
thekmanrocks

front-wheel drive cars.

so let's say you've traded up to a porsche 911. that's worse than

60/40. what tire rotation are you going to do there?

or to put it another way, all you're doing is averaging tire wear over all 4 corners so you have to replace all of them at once, not addressing any alignment issues because it's being masked by rotation, losing traction and braking ability while you're at it, and covering your car manufacturer's lawyer's ass.

Reply to
jim beam

no, if you have one wheel slipping on an open differential, you have one wheel slipping. if traction is available to both wheels, then you have drive on both wheels, not one.

Reply to
jim beam

Yes, but who about the US tire mileage warranty underwriters gives a slightest f*ck about the situation when traction is not a premium?

I, for one, care only about the power distribution in the very adverse conditions: on ice that is.

Reply to
AD

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