Should wheels be rotated?

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Mon 21 Jul 2003 21:16
Should wheels be rotated? - Oz
(You know what I mean - moving the wheels regularly to different positions on the car). Sorry if a thread already exists.
The supposed advantage (is it one?) is that tyre wear will be equalised.
On the other hand, are wheels that are balanced for a specific location on the car thrown into imbalance when moved to another location?
Shouldn't tyres wear evenly in any case unless something is seriously out of alignment?
Oz (as was)
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Mon 21 Jul 2003 21:26
Should wheels be rotated? - DavidHM
I'll erm... start the ball rolling.

There'll be lots of different answers on this, but my take is that there's not much point in doing it because of the need for separate wheel balancing.

Certainly wheels can need rebalancing when placed at different locations on the car.

Tyres won't wear evenly because fronts turn, rears don't, and driven tyres wear more heavily.

My take is that tyres should normally be changed in pairs and have the same tread pattern if possible. New tyres should, according to other threads, go on the rear, to avoid the back sliding out during wet cornering, and I don't disagree with that at all.
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Mon 21 Jul 2003 21:43
Should wheels be rotated? - Stuart Lawrence
New tyres should definately go on the rear for FWD cars. Therefore, when the fronts wear out, you put the rears to the front and the new ones on the back.

Some 4wd cars require all 4 tyres are replaced at the same time in order to avoid extra load on the diff's.
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Mon 21 Jul 2003 21:42
Should wheels be rotated? - sean
If it all goes beautifully well and you equalise the wear on your tyres, there will come a time when you will have to replace all 4 at once.

A £200 or whatever bill. That can be a problem for many folks.
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Mon 21 Jul 2003 23:29
Should wheels be rotated? - Andrew-T
Sean - I'm not sure what sequence you are envisaging. If the car is a new FWD, typically at about 15K the fronts will need replacing, so you move the rears (with about 6mm still left) to the front and put a new pair on the back. At about 30K the same thing happens again.

Haven't worked out what happens to a RWD car as I'm not sure of the wear ratio. Let me know. Personally I prefer more meat on the front wheels as I don't expose my car to rear-wheel slides as a rule.
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Tue 22 Jul 2003 08:27
Should wheels be rotated? - Cliff Pope
< >

Surely 4wd vehicles have a differential front to back, or as with old Land-Rovers, a way of disconnecting one axle when 4wd is not required , to minimise tyre wear?
Even with all 4 wheels driven, the fronts would wear faster because of stearing ? So wouldn't that unbalance the set up even if the tyres started out with the same tread?
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Tue 22 Jul 2003 09:29
Should wheels be rotated? - sean
In the days when I was a lad...

You used to put your new tyres on the front with the logic that they steered as well as drove a fwd car, plus braking was mainly done by the front wheels and weight transfer was onto the front tyres.

Nowadays, folks reckon most skids start at the rear, as a lot of the car weight is over the fronts. Therefore new ones go on the back where they still last forever.

The fronts still wear, so people rotate their tyres. They also think a tyre going clockwise will wear differently if it runs anticlockwise. We could go into the direction arrows you see on high performance tyres, but we'll be here all day.

So, a lot of folks run for 5,000 miles then do
o/s/f to n/s/r
n/s/f to o/s/r

You eventually get to the point where all tyre are close to the limit. Then buy 4 new ones.

Someone wrote something about balancing.

Most wheels are balanced off the car. The driver really feels out of balance fronts, but not so much the rears. Balance defects there are felt by rear seat passengers (vibes).

So, if a balance weight drops off a rear, who notices, who cares?

If yon wheel then goes on the front, it really needs balancing as my steering wheel now shimmys.
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Tue 22 Jul 2003 09:57
Should wheels be rotated? - Dan J
We could go into the direction arrows you see on
high performance tyres, but we'll be here all day.
So, a lot of folks run for 5,000 miles then do
o/s/f to n/s/r
n/s/f to o/s/r


Good advice Sean - I used to do this all the time on my old Maestro to great effect.

NEVER do this with directional tyres though. You're only option then is to swap fronts and rears on the same side of the car - unfortunately whilst preserving some tyre life on powerful FWD cars, is not as effective as Sean's non-directional method.
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