I don't rotate my tires

Maintenance/Repairs
61

The more information we have, the better the accuracy of the estimate. In this case, I can only tell you that the tire wear should be more or less even across the face of the tread.

So, No!! You shouldn’t be seeing very different tread depth one edge vs the center. They should be about the same across the face of the tread.

What’s “about the same”? I expect no more than 1/32nd of an inch difference, but it’s possible to be slightly worse than that. I can’t be more exact than that for quite a number of reasons - including the fact that some tire manufacturers don’t use the same tread depth across the face of the tread for new, unused tires.

62

Well of course it is but if you don’t want to save money then buy those same tires from a place not doing the 4 for 3 price.

63

That seems to say that you expect that my unrotated tires will have worn evenly, but of course the fronts more than the rears.
I’ll bring up another related topic that I don’t think is addressed fully. BALANCING. Are you rotators who are striving for the most even wear pattern also frequent balancers? That is, do you balance before there are symptoms? (My unrotated fronts near the end-of-life could use a balance at this point.)

64

Honestly, I think you’re onto something. The blanket advice to rotate every X miles doesn’t always fit real-world use. I’ve stopped rotating mine too—mostly for the same reasons. I’d rather spot uneven wear early than keep juggling it around and masking suspension issues.

I drive a RAV4 here in Washington state (not exactly pothole central either), and I got 48K out of my last front set without a single rotation. Rear tires still had solid tread, so I just replaced the fronts through NeoTires saved money over replacing all four and kept the rear pair running.

The whole idea of “all four at once” seems geared more toward AWD systems and tire shops wanting a full sale. But for FWD and even RWD, replacing in pairs works fine if you’re mindful.

Only time I’d strictly rotate is if I were running a performance setup or AWD with tight diff tolerances. Otherwise, knowing your car’s true wear pattern gives you way more useful data than a perfectly even tread does.

65

The 2 new tires should always go on the rear of the vehicle no matter if FWD or RWD because of hydroplaning. If the tire shop actually put the new tires on the front then they are probably wrong about other things.

3 Likes
66

That is about 1/2 hour of wages for the staff.
Free rotations provide a good supply of customer vehicles for tire inspections. Based on my experience, 1 out of 4 vehicles will need a tire repair or replacement. Tire punctures and other damages go unnoticed by the customer with the vehicle on the ground.

25% off a set of 4 doesn’t have the same allure. Maybe offer both deals and let the customer choose between the two.

67

Raise you4 hand if this discussion has changed your mind. I paid about $1200 fi4 my tires and have known the shop owner for years. If he says rotate every 6000, that’s what I tend to do. Time before last, the new girl charged me fi4 th3vritation. I didn’t say anything but think i5 wa# $40. Figured I hit my moneys worth in spades anyway.

68

My takeaway from this whole discussion is that if you are not doing rotations, you should still inspect your tires every 5K, and by then you should not need to look too closely to see a wheel with uneven wear. Conversely, if you plan to do rotations, you should should look even more closely, because if you have a bad wheel, you are going to put a good tire there, and you will have two bad tires.

69

Huhh…

70

Read this or not, I really don’t care at this point, but you (OP) ask the question so I answered, as well as addressing some other statements… You can also just skip to the last sentence for my final thoughts on this… lol

Yes I balance my tires every rotation, non stick on weights, especially the leadfree weights tend to move some over time when not so smooth roads are driven on, as well as knock-on & stick-on weights can fall off, even if the tire never changes balance… I can feel a 1/4 oz out of balance wheel on my econo boxs (Corolla’s/Vibe-Matrix), but I may just be in tune with my vehicles more than most people, I can also just about tell you when/how much my alignment is off a little + or - just by the way it handles in a high speed curve (interstate) and how it handles the pave lines on the straights, it may still be in the technical OK range, but still toed in/out over what I always have it or set it too, (I let my buddy set it cause he knows how I want it done, if I am unable to, he IS the only one that I have let drive my fun car since I dropped the engine in it years ago…)

Are the wheels/tires always out of balance no, but they are more so than not, this has been tested many times on many vehicles with free balance (and rotate).. Are the alignments always in the red, no, but more so then not, even on customers vehicle, but it generally only takes a tweaking when being aligned regularly…

Now I had a lady’s vehicle towed in once with a blown out tire from hitting an object in the road, she needed new tires anyway and was already prepared for an alignment after the new tires.
Well she was happy when I told her that her bill was less cause I changed the alignment to a FREE alignment check (which my company always did the whole time I worked there) cause it was still in spec… That is just one example…

And if a shop is rotating your tires (free or not) and happens to find a steering or suspension part loose and or brake pads at the min spec as an example and INFORMS you of it, then it is NOT an up-sale, it is informing you of an unsafe or soon to be unsafe condition to your vehicle, same thing if you fall down and break a rib and the ER finds a large mass on/in your lungs when doing the x-rays and tells you about it, The Hospital/Dr is NOT trying to up sale you more test or treatment just because they make money from it, they are informing you of what they found because it is a health issue…
Guess what, you can decline to repair the vehicle just as much as you can decline treatment or further test about what the ER Dr/staff told you about and for both of those, guess what, you can also get a 2nd opinion…
Also informing you of your vehicles maintenance requirements and or recommendations is not an up sale, it is informing you of what is recommended at x mile/x year scheduled maintenance services, kinda hard to see on most vehicles on the road now a days if the spark plugs have just been changed or not, so you are informed about them, it is up to YOU the owner to keep track of what/when maintenance items were last preformed…

Are there up sale items, yes, are there information items that require addressing sooner than later yes.. If you have ANY question abouts the repair being offered, ask to see what is wrong with it… My company pushed us to show and tell, take the customer out to the vehicle and show them or have the tech show and explain what and why something needs replacing once you and the salesman are at the vehicle…

If you don’t trust the company, then WTF are you letting them do the free stuff or whatever they are doing in the 1st place? That is on you…

BTW, our lifetime of the tire balancing was ONLY $16.00 more per 4 tires or $4.00 each over the basic one time balance, most people when offered chose the lifetime over the basic balance, and if you only used the free balance once over the life of the tire it still more than paid for itself, and if the tire was road hazarded out, the lifetime balance carried over at no charge…

This was just an informational post as I know the OP as some others are set in their ways, and this was a complete waste of my time…

4 Likes
71

Davesmopar sounds exactly like the kind of guy I would have working on my car. Knowledgeable and careful and looking out for the customer. I’ll let others decide whether his maintenance plan is simply “thorough” or is it “overkill”. But there is something missing for those who do not do their own work, and that is the cost of this maintenance plan. Rotations and balancing are not truly free, ever. Their cost might be hidden. So, it really comes down to cost-benefit. Does fixing an undetected imbalance or a barely detectable imbalance end up as a positive cost-benefit? One poster here was paying $45 for a rotation! What did the mechanic get paid for that rotation?

72

Well, that depends. At a dealer or indy automotive shop a “tire rotation” isn’t really a thing. We don’t have people ask for just a rotation nor do we generally offer it as a stand-alone service as we would for something like alignment, transmission service, etc. Modern day cars have service intervals that seem to coincide, so a rotation is due at every oil change. And since tire rotation is “C” level work, that wouldn’t go to a flat-rate A or B tech. One of the lube kids would handle it.

Way back when, when I was a flat-rater and an indy shop, I would get paid .1 hrs to do a tire rotation if it was added to an oil change. I wouldn’t get paid separately for the rotation if it was part of the 30K service I was doing, it was included in the 2.5 hours for the whole job. I wouldn’t get paid anything for the rotation if I was doing a brake inspection at the same time, because I already had all the wheels off.

As far as paying $45 for a tire rotation as a stand-alone service, that sounds fair. Depending on the car (like GM cars), the tire locations may need to be relearned. Rotating and relearning can take 15 minutes, and at rates close to $200, well…

Here’s the other side of free rotations, does it make sense to take advantage of them? The last shop I worked at did a lot of alignment work. We would regularly see wear on the tires while doing an alignment and recommend a rotation for an additional $19.95. Often people would say “No thanks, Costco does it for free, I’ll just go there.”

2 Likes
73

Normally, the only time that I have needed to rebalance tires is if they have been taken off the wheels, for puncture repair. However, on my 2011 Outback, the OEM Continental tires wouldn’t “hold” a balance, so I had to have them rebalanced every time that I rotated the tires.

Things improved a lot after the dealership got a Hunter GSP9700 Road Force Balancer, but by the time I was ready for the next tire rotation, I could detect a slight imbalance, and I had to have them balanced again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And, I wasn’t the only person to have this complaint with those OEM Contis. I was informed that Subaru corporate told dealerships that they had to install that equipment, as a result of all of the complaints about those tires.

74

I have balancing done once in a blue moon if I detect some vibration. Then I schedule that along with a tire rotation. I don’t do routine balance or alignment. But that’s just me.

75

I will have the tires rotated on the vehicles I own that allow you to. My Corvette does NOT allow for tire rotation due to the fact the tires in front are a different size then the rears.

1 Like
76

I wonder how much a four tire switch costs on a Corvette! I’m sure you must drive very slowly to avoid that!

77

Any tire web site can answer that for you while you are drinking your morning coffee. I never drove my Corvette slow.

78

I have replaced tires on Lexus vehicles that were $450 each.

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That picture was from 2023.Prices have gone up since then, this is Tire Rack:

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79

At Costco’s Tire Center, a set of the correct-spec Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires for a 2023 Stingray costs $680 for the two front tires, and $1,198 for the rear tires. The total is $1,888, which is actually less than I would have expected. That is the installed price, which includes 5 years of Road Hazard coverage.

80

And that’s before labor, correct?