Is tire rotation important?

Question

I just bought new tires for my car and included was free tire rotation every 7,500 miles for the life of the tires.

I have heard many things about tire rotation, including:

1. it's a worthless practice, don't bother
2. tires should never be rotated from one side of the car to another (something about the tires rotating in the opposite direction and the belts inside shifting)
3. tires should always be rotated in an X pattern (front tires straight back, back tires get swapped and put on the front)

Is there any real value in rotating the tires? is it just about evenly distributing the wear of the tread on the tire? Can this be achieved just through careful monitoring of the tire pressure and alignment of the car?

Answer 1

While I believe the tire shop gives free rotation to get you in the habit of coming back to them every few months so they can sell you more, it can be important to rotate your tires.

It all depends on the wear of the tires

I have had sets of tires that wore extremely evenly and I only rotated them once. Other sets of tires I have had wore very unevenly and had to rotate them multiple times during the life of that set.

For the question of rotation arrangement:

1. It depends on your car's manual
2. It depends on your specific tires

As other people have said, some tires are unidirectional and if you put the tires on the other side of the car, you will have problems. Most of the recent cars I have driven tell you to rotate your tires front to back and NOT across the car. I believe many manufacturers are going to unidirectional tires.

The real value that comes from rotating your tires is that when the tires wear unevenly, rotating the tires spreads the wear out more evenly on each tire as well, as over the set.

On each tire — some cars and/or driver's habits cause the front tires to wear more in certain places of the tire, moving the tires to the rear axle generally cause those worn places to not get used as hard and wear the other places on the tires. (i.e., a lot of FWD car's front tires wear a good bit on the corners since they are used for steering and power)

Over the set — the tires on the powered axle tend to wear out faster since more force is exerted through them to the pavement. To maximize the life of the tires, you switch the tires on the powered axle to the non-powered axle so that those less-used tires (with more tread) are used to even the wear.

Answer 2

Some tires are directional and should never be moved from one side of the car to the other (at least not without flipping the wheel around too). They'll have an arrow on the sidewall marking "direction of rotation." Switching those from front to back to front will definitely make them last longer. Not only do tires wear out on faster on the drive axle, they wear differently in the front and the back. That's especially true if you've got any kind of suspension issues... any loose bushings or weak struts or imperfect alignment will greatly shorten the life of your tires, but regular rotation can help squeeze more use out of them.

Answer 3

Always follow the guidelines in your owner's manual. There will be specific instructions on how your tires should be rotated and, therefore, will also guide you on tire purchases.

My car is AWD and requires unidirectional tires (check the sidewalls - there will be an indication on both sides of the tire showing "rotation direction" to remind you). Tires from the left side should never be put on the right side. Rotation is, therefore, fore and aft only. If I didn't rotate, the wear would be terribly uneven between the fronts and rears.

This is entirely intuitive: the front tires steer and have to deal with the angles relative to forward motion and the loads that will result. The rears don't. If I didn't rotate the tires, the fronts would wear sooner and reduce my ability to steer.

I, not surprisingly, feel that this situation would be sub-optimal....

When tires are rotated, their pressures should also be adjusted. I've found that when my tires are not correctly inflated (e.g., too high in the rear), I hear significantly more differential / gearbox noise during engine braking in second gear.

The above only applies to normal operation in normal circumstances. If you're running your own race team, you may make different choices about your tires. Likewise, if you're a rally race driver, you might allocate rubber differently.

All normal people should follow the instructions in the manual.

Answer 4

I was originally in the "follow the directions" camp but after I didn't rotate tires on one car because I was being lazy, I found a real advantage of not rotating. Not rotating is a diagnostic tool.

If you don't rotate your tires you are more likely to notice a problem. A wheel out of balance, alignment problem or worn wheel bearing. Thus, the right answer may be more a function of your goals than what is generally best. If you want the maximum mileage on a set of tires, rotate. If you want to identify problems early, don't rotate.

Answer 5

I have always noticed that the tires on the drive axle of my vehicles wear out sooner than the other ones. This seems to be especially true of modern, high horsepower, front wheel drive vehicles, since the front tires do the acceleration, most of the braking, and the steering.

If you can have the tires rotated for free, I don't see any harm in having that done, but I'm not sure I would pay too much to have it done, as that money would be better spent towards new tires.

I rotate the tires when I do brake jobs and sometimes during oil changes, so I have never needed to take my cars somewhere to have it done - but free is nice.

Answer 6

I had a 2011 Toyota Yaris for which there was an alignment problem. An unlucky summer tire was on the same front right position two times in a row. It had worn visibly unevenly. So, I would say if you have an alignment problem, tire rotation is mandatory and you shouldn't exceed 7500 miles as the interval -- I would recommend 5000 mile interval. Fixing the alignment however may be cost effective if you don't perform the tire rotation yourself or alternatively if your time has a high value. If you don't put a value on your time and do not have the expertise to fix the alignment but do have the expertise to perform tire rotation, then by all means rotate the tires often!

What if you don't have an alignment problem, then? I would say 7500 miles is probably on the low end of the recommended range. If you don't like doing tire rotation or pay for someone else to do it, you can stretch the interval to 15000 miles. A top quality set of tires should last 50000 miles if driven carefully, if rotated systematically and if there's no alignment problem. 15000 miles means you rotate the tires three times during the lifetime, meaning that each tire has four possible positions to be in. This should guarantee even tread wear.

So, the answer to the question about the importance of tire rotation is: it depends. More specifically, it depends on whether your alignment is all right.

If you fail to rotate tires often enough, and you have front wheel drive car as is typical these days, you put yourself into a difficult position. On one hand, front tires wear faster, meaning you should put better tires to the front to guarantee even wear. On the other hand, better tires to the rear is important for safety. This also applies to many all wheel drive cars these days: for fuel efficiency reasons, many are front wheel drive normally and the rear wheel drive is connected only when necessary. As a matter of fact, increasingly often the rear wheel drive is done electrically.

For rear wheel drive cars, the answer to tire installation is clear. Better tires should be on the rear.

Answer 7

Regarding directional tires, and the dangers of incorrect tire rotation and mounting them backwards:

These will have a V-shaped tread pattern that acts to pump water and mud away from the center line of the tire. These tires are better able to handle heavy rainstorms and slushy snowfall by actively pushing water out to the sides of the tread area as the tire rolls forward, minimizing the risk of hydroplaning at high road speeds in heavy rain.

And even if you do start hydroplaning, water is pumped out by the V-tread as you slide forward on the water layer, allowing you to regain traction more quickly than a non-directional tread.

Off-road and tractor tires can have such large and deep V-treads that the tire changes to look like it has angled tread slabs or paddles on a bald tire surface, allowing the tire to pump thick and heavy mud out of its path.

The deeper and wider the V-tread channels, the greater this pumping action, but a large-grooved V-tread is also going to have less torque transfer to the ground and reduced braking traction since the grooves takes away contact surface of the tire to the ground. A large-grooved tread may also wear faster since more vehicle weight is concentrated over a smaller tread-to-road contact area.

The V-groove will also work to drive fine granulated sand out of the tread path. If you go into a uncontrolled skid on dry sandy pavement, some of the sand will get pushed out to the sides through the V-tread and assist in regaining traction more quickly, vs a non-directional tread that will just trap and roll the sand forward in the tread grooves.

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So, you do not want to mount these tires backwards because then that V-tread will work against you, instead pulling any water, mud, or sand on the road into the tread path and trying to concentrate it there. The result is that you are likely go into uncontrolled hydroplaning at freeway speed with even a light rainfall, and the vehicle may be unusable in moderate to heavy rainfall unless you drive very slowly.

The unidirectional tread pattern generally has no safety impact on moving in reverse in wet weather, because a typical vehicle can't go fast enough in reverse for the inward water-pumping action to have much effect.

Answer 8

Some tire manufacturers only accept their "50000 mile" tread warranty if you had regular rotations. Walmart at least. For what it's worth...