I am challenging the big SHOULD that we all hear regarding tire rotation. I don’t understand fully why there is a need to rotate my tires. If my car is out of alignment, I will learn that sooner if I don’t rotate. If I wear out the front tires and the back tires are worn evenly, then I just buy two tires. What is the big deal about juggling the tread life so that they all four need replacement at the same time? I would lose the information about any misalignment and the information about front vs. rear wear life. At least one pair of tires would be markedly better that the other, and a new PAIR of tires would be on the car more frequently. (I could put the new pair in the recommended spot.) Maybe I get away with this scheme because I don’t live in pothole land. I haven’t had an alignment for 15 years and 150K miles.
Good Grief ! Not only is this a bad practice but with so many buy 3 get one free deals or rebates for buying a full set you are costing yourself money.
Bat signal For @CapriRacer
Most of the big tire rebates are for a full set of 4 tires, afaik
Of course, this means in the last few months, you are driving on four nearly-bald tires.
Full disclosure- I never rotate tires myself. Two reasons; one, they always seem to wear evenly and I get full life out of all 4 before I need to replace all of them and two, I am lazy that way and get away with it so why bother? Consequently, I almost never do alignments either. Tires wear evenly, no handling issues, why mess with it? (I do my own alignments on cars I have restored as well)…
seeing the last post- I am never driving on almost bald tires. I replace them when they are worn enough to warrant replacement but not seriously compromised.
I am trying to learn in this discussion exactly what is “bad”.
Curious, what is this vehicle because most vehicles will wear out the front tires first.
I rotate my tires on the RAV4 and it costs me $45 each time.
To me, tire rotation seems pointless as the cost to rotate them ( if you can’t do it yourself) can easily buy you new tires and have money left over.
If you think it is pointless then why do it? If your tires last 50000 miles and you rotate at 6000 miles you will spend less than 500.00 dollars. You can’t buy much of a tire for 500.00 these days.
All of them. I haven’t rotated tires in several decades at least. I do a lot of expressway driving versus city and try not to scrub tires in curves where possible. I do have/had some fun rides that get more abuse than the daily drivers, same result there though. Must be all that goodwill I built up over the years?? Nah.
This argument totally forgets that rotation does not reduce tire wear. Think of it this way: the front tires wear at a certain rate …X nanometers per mile. The rears at Y nanometers per mile. Since the car is always driven using all four tires, the total wear rate does not improve with a rotation. The only thing that changes is that all four wear out at the same time…and just before they wear out, you are driving on four nearly worn out tires.
Add me to the list of someone who has never rotated tires on my cars. That approach has never failed me in the last 56 years of driving.
I understand why it’s recommended and I fully support it.
But I’ve never experienced the need to on my cars, making it not worth my time based on the tire wear I’ve been getting all these years.
If I had an AWD, then I’d rotate.
Tire wear will happen one way or another.
But doesn’t rotation lengthen the period of time over which tread wear occurs? Especially if the car’s front to rear weight bias is greater than 55/45 either end.
If it works for you great! But most people have driving styles and/or cars that need rotation to balance tire wear.
Anything that endangers someone or cost you more money.
Shop around. I’ve seen tire rotations for less. Especially if you do an oil change at the same time. Car is already on the rack. Especially if a repeat customer.
Costs money? You don’t do it yourself?
Which is a later time.
On my AWD you replace all four when one goes bad.
People are talking about lengthening the time that the tires will last. If you do NOT rotate, the front tires will last a shorter time and the rear tires will last a longer time. If you DO rotate, all four tires will last somewhere in-between those two times.
SO: The first argument in favor of rotating is the special pricing that you get when buying four. Of course, I can capture that discount by buying four and storing two in my garage.
This brings me to a second argument regarding this issue: If you do NOT rotate your tires, you will visit the tire dealer twice as often…UNLESS your tire dealer also does your rotations.
A few points FOR rotation…
Tires at either end of the car can wear unevenly… more on the inside than outside, more on the outside than inside even IF the alignment is perfect. You can run the tires longer if you rotate because you won’t have to replace a tire prematurely that has legal tread on the outer 1/3 and worn out on the inner 1/3rd
All FWD cars wear out the fronts first, that’s clear. So you replace the fronts at 30K and 3 years and they should go on the rear, now. So your front tires are 3 years old and will be old and hard before they wear out. Your 3 year old tires get rotated to the front when you get 2 new tires. Again, running around on 3 year old tires. Not optimum for traction.
Rotating tires gives you or your shop the opportunity to look at your suspension parts, brake pads and rotors to make sure those are in good shape. This assumes you don’t use the clueless monkeys at Jiffy Boob or up-sellers at the chain stores to rotate.