It’s normal for tires to wear unevenly on your vehicle. This can be caused by a number of factors including unbalanced tires, improper alignment, over/under inflation of tire pressure, suspension neglect, as well as whether your vehicle is front-wheel or rear-wheel drive. For example front-wheel drive vehicles will tend to put more brake emphasis and weight on the front tires causing them to wear quicker. To extend the life of your tires, you should plan to rotate them about every 6,000 – 8,000 miles. It may be convenient to schedule your tire rotation every other oil change (which should be done each 3,000 miles). It’s a quick and inexpensive preventative maintenance practice to establish.
Routine tire rotation can help to maintain even tire wear and tread thickness. This will provide safer and more stable braking capabilities and vehicle handling. Furthermore when your tires have reached the end of their useful life, you’ll be replacing all four tires together. This will help to keep the vehicle performing at an optimal level. If you replace two tires rather than four, you’ll have uneven tread thickness which may result in uneven braking and less desirable handling particularly in wet driving conditions.
Rotating all tires including the spare will help to maintain similar tread depths on all five tires throughout their life. For many four-wheel drive vehicles, this is required to prevent drivetrain damage if a tire is to be replaced with partially worn tires on the other three wheels. Additionally, this type of tire rotation helps to reduce extra stress on the transfer box and differentials.
There are three traditional tire rotation patterns which can be followed:
Front-wheel drive vehicles
Rotate the tires in a forward cross pattern (Figure 1) or the
alternative X pattern (Figure 2)
Rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive
vehicles
Rotate the tires in a rearward cross pattern (Figure 3) or the
alternative X pattern (Figure 2)
Two additional tire rotation patterns are available for performance tires and wheels
Same size directional wheels/tires
The “Front-to-Rear” (Figure 4) pattern may be used for vehicles
equipped with the same size directional wheels and/or directional
tires.
Different sized non-directional tires and
wheels
A “Side-to-Side” (Figure 5) pattern may be used for vehicles
equipped with different sized non-directional tires and wheels on
the front axle compared to the rear axle.
Vehicles that use different sized directional wheels and tires, and/or wheels with different front and rear offsets with directional tires will require dismounting, mounting, and rebalancing to properly rotate tires.
Rotating tires with spares
If your vehicle has a full-sized spare (not a compact spare or
donut), you may want to include that tire in the rotation. Below
are two additional rotation patterns which can be followed to
incorporate the spare.
On front-wheel drive cars with full-size matching spare, rotate the tires in a forward cross pattern (Figure 6)
On rear-wheel or four-wheel drive cars with full-size matching spare, rotate the tires in a rearward cross pattern (Figure 7)
As always, the experts at Dunn Tire can help you with your all of your tire needs. Stop into any of our 30 convenient locations for more information.