18 replies to this topic

[rubberlegs]

I hope this isn’t a controversial topic, as I see it is on truck fora.

For our heavy-on-rear truck campers, how do you rotate tires? I’m stuck in decades old paradigm of swapping front and rear on the same side. Finally looked into it, better late then never, and discover diagonal methods are used. We have 40,000 miles on our tires, so I’ll probably continue the non diagonal rotation until we get new tires.

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I’ve trusted Les Schwab to do that job for nearly the last 40 years.  To be truthful, I haven’t paid much attention to their methodology.

[ski3pin]

Midway through the life of our last set of tires we changed our rotation pattern to rear to the front same side and front to rear swapping sides. I do not have enough long term data about the effect on tire wear. The tire dealer said crossing patterns are good.

[Beach]

I always rotate front to rear and swap left to right when remounting the rears. Having said that I believe a lot of people rotate more often than needed. I rotate/balance tires every15- 20k miles on my vehicles unless I see abnormal wear. and in that case i'll repair what ever is causing that abnormal wear, then rotate. My truck tires will probably only get rotated once or twice since they will "age out" and Discount Tire will refuse to work on them. Note: check tire pressure often, especially after any big temp changes.

[ski3pin]

I always rotate front to rear and swap left to right when remounting the rears. Having said that I believe a lot of people rotate more often than needed. I rotate/balance tires every15- 20k miles on my vehicles unless I see abnormal wear. and in that case i'll repair what ever is causing that abnormal wear, then rotate. My truck tires will probably only get rotated once or twice since they will "age out" and Discount Tire will refuse to work on them. Note: check tire pressure often, especially after any big temp changes.

Bingo on checking tire pressure. It is on the check list before every trip.

 

We live in mountains and regularly drive mountain roads. Our long time local tire dealer recommends rotation every 3000 to 3500 miles. We rotate every 5000.

[DavidGraves]

This is a great discussion. Tires are important AND expensive. Keeping up with tire pressures is easy.

 

The crux of different exchange patterns  ( apart from suspension wear issues etc. ) may be whether or not your tires themselves can change direction of rotation ....We have almost always run Michellins and they do not like to change rotation of the tire itself after the first say 5K miles. 

 

This limits us to front back/back same side pattern.

 

David Graves

[craig333]

Whatever America's Tire does, I haven't really paid attention. 

[ski3pin]

This is a great discussion. Tires are important AND expensive. Keeping up with tire pressures is easy.

 

The crux of different exchange patterns  ( apart from suspension wear issues etc. ) may be whether or not your tires themselves can change direction of rotation ....We have almost always run Michellins and they do not like to change rotation of the tire itself after the first say 5K miles. 

 

This limits us to front back/back same side pattern.

 

David Graves

 

Thanks for adding this. I was told our Cooper tires can be crossed.
 

[rubberlegs]

Ah, I see that Toyota recommends keeping tires on the same side (front to back only).

 

We have BF Goodrich KO2 tires, and (at least Canadian) Goodrich recommends crossing, but states:

 

"However, check your owner's manual to see if there is a recommended rotation scheme."

 

We do put a lot of weight on the rear tires, but perhaps that's not relevant to tire rotation.

[BBZ]

Good question.. whatever Ford dealer does? So far it works great.. 20k on BFG KO2 and they look brand new to me... probably rotated more like every 6500 dish miles.. (truck only gets 10k per year, mostly a recreational vehicle at this point)