My son causally mentioned to me that he rotated the tires on his 2017 Jeep Cherokee, over the weekend. I asked him how often he rotates them and he said it was the first time since he purchased the car and it has now ~25K miles on it.
Later I was wondering whether or not it makes a positive difference or is even counter productive rotating tires after already putting 25K miles on it. I don’t know.
Rotating tires should be done at every oil change or 6000k miles to minimize tire wear. You are right! Its a bit too late now.
Tires , probably not a serious problem. But the question is has he done the critical service stuff according to the manual ? Oil changes ( with receipts ) and what time and mileage Jeep requires vehicle service. Rather important in case a warranty repair is needed.
If he has an all wheel drive vehicle, it’s possible he did some damage by allowing the tire diameter differences to become too wide-spread. If he doesn’t, then he didn’t do any lasting harm, though now that the significantly lower-tread tires are on the back and it’s winter, if you get ice and snow he might find that he’s a lot more prone to fishtailing now than he used to be.
Thanks all, something to think about and pass along to my son.
Yes, he has all other maintenance done way ahead of schedule.
I’d guess it’s better to rotate tires at 25K than not at all.
Agree with George. Better late than never. However,probably no point rotating them again now that they’ve been rotated once at 25k.
I agree except for FWD vehicles, where the wear rate of the front tires is over twice as fast as the rear.
i got a used car and found out local shop that sells the tires will rotate/bal them for free as they are only shop in area that sells them. nice i suppose but not helpful to OP
Doesn’t this scenario call the competence of his mechanic into question?
Why would a competent mechanic NOT mention the importance of tire rotation when doing other types of maintenance on your son’s car?
Or… is it possible that the mechanic did tell your son that the tires needed to be rotated every 6k miles, and that your son declined that service?
Hmmm…
His vehicle is biased to rear wheel drive, meaning that power is mostly sent to the rear wheels. If his is a 2wd model, then it is moot. Anyway regardless of which type, the tires tend to wear about the same front and rear as long as the alignment is good. The difference is that the rear tires tend to wear more in the center and the front on the outer edges.
I suggest that your son invest in a tire depth gauge, about $3 for a simple one, and measure the tread depth at each tire. They should be within 2/32" or 1mm of each other. If so, all is good. If not, then he may need more advice.
Assuming he moved front to rear when he rotated the tires, you’ll have to go 25k miles for the less worn rear tires (that are now on the front) to catch up in wear to the more worn front tires (which are now on the rear). Right? Then you’re at 50k miles and the tires are pretty much done for. Was my thinking anyway.
Don’t the drive tires generally wear faster on all vehicles (both fwd and rwd)?
[quote=“Scrapyard_John, post:12, topic:131816”] ……… Don’t the drive tires generally wear faster on all vehicles (both fwd and rwd)?
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No. On RWD, the wear is different. As Keith said, steer tires tend to wear the shoulders and drive tires tend to wear the center. However the wear rates are fairly close - and the exact wear rate depends on many things, but a major factor is whether the vehicle turns a lot (like driving in the city) or spends a lot of time driving straight ahead (like in the country.) It is quite possible for either end to wear faster - but nothing like what happens on a FWD.
If I rotated these tires at this point, I’d first make sure the current front tires don’t have noticeably less tread than the current back tires, then I’d put the fronts on the back and vice versa, even though the normal rotation pattern might call for something different. After that, I’d leave the tires alone for the rest of their life. However, he needs to keep in mind that the tires might become noisy after this rotation because the wear patterns are so set by now.
I’ve noticed my drive tires consistently wear faster in my rwd trucks. I live in the country, as you said. Not a ton of sharp cornering going on.