If the tires have directional treads then you can’t rotate right to left, only front to back assuming they are the same width.
Man, how old is this? Tire dealer says every 6,000 miles and free. Good chance to check brake pads etc. sure if you have different size tires on the rear you can’t rotate and they don’t seem to recommend the old cross pattern rotation anymore. If I ever have one of those cars I’ll keep it in mind.
lol … Remember Daniel Pinkwater, of Best of Car Talk fame? I think it was an early 90’s program when he said told Ray and Tom he had purchased a used BMW 7 series b/c he liked its size, fit his proportions. He discovered later his used BMW-7 had some problems, no worries, he had them all fixed. He said he liked the repaired car so much he bought another one, for his wife. I’ve always wondered about his final opinion? How long did he keep them, etc?
As I recall Pinkwater drove a VW Beetle. Amazingly, he fit quite well.
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A little Googling shows there’s an audio CD available, for those interested in listening to the Pinkwater shows.
The BMW’s came first from my recollection then when he called in a couple years later he’d purchased a VW New Beetle because getting into and out of the 7 Series became more of a challenge where the VW he could just enter and exit with ease.
The Show with the VW was #908 The Perfect Pinkwater Car,
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I disagree with you on this. Most BMW’s are RWD. Front tires take a different bite than the rear tires. Once a pattern is set on the tire, the wear slows down. When you move that tire to a different position, it has to take a new bite and that causes rapid wear until the new wear pattern is established. On my RWD vehicles, I have gotten over 100k on a set of tires w/o rotating them.
FWD does wear the front much faster than the rears. On these vehicles I rotate once when the front tires are down to about 6/32" (replace at 3-4/32" when tires are on sale). The tires don’t last quite as long but they do OK. 80 - 100K generally.
My Subaru requires rotation every 7500 miles. To me the 7500 miles is not important and in fact can lead to damage. Long wearing tires should see very little variation in tread depth over 7500 miles but I can see a case where HP tires driven by an aggressive driver could wear the tires so much faster that by 7500 miles, the difference in tread depth of the tires could be great enough to damage the viscous coupling in the transmission.
I prefer to use a tread depth gauge to determine when rotation is needed. I have been going by 7500 miles or 1/32" difference in tread depth from most worn to least worn as a guide, but it has turned out that for me, the 7500 miles is the guide because all four tires wear very evenly and never reach a difference of 1/32" My current tires have 85k on them and are all at 5/32" tread depth. I’m debating about getting new tires this fall or wait till next fall. These tires were bought in 2017 so they are getting a bit old.
Hmmm…
I went from 10/32 inches(new) down to 4/32 of tread currently, in three years, on the set of Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus’s on my 2010 Honda Accord.
I kept the cold tire pressures consistently at 32-33psi(32 is cold spec), and have rotated them once per year.
I’ve had the car aligned every year, and tire wear is even across the treads.
The Pirellies have 24,000 miles on them.
So I don’t know how you got a set of tires to last over 80,000 miles like that.
Most of us don’t argue tires with @CapriRacer , the resident expert. My record though is 110,000 on a set of Goodyear on my 81 olds delta 88 with 15. Inch wheels. Yeah they were pretty worn.
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Over the years I’ve consistently achieved 60-80 k using garden variety-Michelin replacement tires. Not quite as many miles on other brands. The Uniroyal Tiger Paws I used to use on my truck did pretty good though, at least 60 K. Do they still make those? I used to see a Tiger Paw advert on tv most anytime watching sports, but haven’t seen one in ages. I seldom watch sports now , so maybe why. The tires that came new w/the Corolla, new car tires, they did the job well, but only got about 30K.
What are the UTQG of all these tires that are lasting 100k vs 30k miles…
We used to carry a Turanza LST that was a 80K tire and with very little maintenance would still last over 100K miles… Some tires just tend to last and some don’t… A lot depends on how you drive and or the type of driving you do… Nashville Cabs get about 1/2 life no matter what tire they use… A paper route driver with a hilly/curvy paper route can get as little as 20K out of a 80K tires…
Pirelli Cinturato P7 were never known to be long wearing tires, but only 24k on them? That is pretty quick. I had a 97 Honda Accord that came with Michelin MXV4 tires and I always replaced them with that tire. I got a little over 50k per set, one rotation only per set.
That Honda and the 93 Civic I had previous to that always had trouble with alignments. After the dealer and two other shops failed to get the alignment right on the Accord, I did my own alignment in the driveway. No problems after that. The dealer did two alignments and replaced the front tires twice within the first 10k on the Civic. I ended up taking it to an independent with an excellent reputation for an alignment and it was good after that.
I don’t always get 80k+ out of a set of tires. It depends on the vehicle and the tires I chose for that vehicle. My highest mile vehicles were my 97 Nissan truck, 102k on Firestone FR480. My Saturn got 84k on the OEM Firestone FR 680, then 120k on Bridgestone Turanza’s. The OEM Bridgestone Ecopia on my Subaru had to be replaced at 55k dues to a sidewall puncture but there was still about half the tread on them at that time. The current Bridgestone Turanza’s have 85k on them and are at 5/32".
The first key to long tire life is alignment. Watch the tread wear and as long as it is even, and the vehicle track OK, DO NOT mess with it. Leave it alone. I only get or do an alignment when there is a problem.
Second, air pressure. The placard gives me a starting point, but I watch the tread wear and make adjustments accordingly. My 97 Accord seemed to do best with 35 psi. In fact I have found that most of my vehicles do best with about an extra 3 psi cold, but it varies on some vehicles and with some tires.
Third is driving style. The more you use your brakes, the more fuel you use and the faster your tires wear out. Of course you have to use your brakes, but things like timing the traffic lights, keeping a reasonable distance behind cars in front so you are not reacting to their changes in speed as much, timing your corners on a country road so you don’t need to brake before the curve etc. make a big difference in the life of your tires. BTW, not many people keep up with me on a curvy country road.
I get the feeling Pirellis in general are performance tires, and long wear is a lower priority than how they handle.
If you don’t rotate your tires, make sure to reach in and check the inner edge of your rear tires for wear regularly (such as when you check your tire pressure). That kind of wear often isn’t visually obvious.
Very impressive!
My best was 77k on the original Michelin X tires when I dumped my POS '74 Volvo, and I’m pretty sure that they would have been good for 15k-20k more safe miles. The tires (and the brakes) were absolutely the only good things about that car.
Bosch K-Jetronic?
Yup! One of the car’s major problem areas had to do with that primitive mechanical FI system. Then, there was the ENTIRE electrical system–which was an ongoing disaster, a few other recurring problems, plus the crappy paint job.
Yeah my future boss (crest in peace but a few of us talked snout watering his grave) had a new must have been 75 or 76. That car was continually in the shop for fi or other electrical issues.
Yup!
That’s why I always chuckle when we get someone in this forum who regrets that Volvos “aren’t as reliable as they used to be”. I have a hard time believing that they are now worse than they were in the '70s, but… maybe they are.
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