Hit 5K all ready! so went to rotate the tires. Being raised by my old timer mechanic dad, I've allways done straint front to back, something about the belts. Anyways, this time I followed the pics in the book, straight front to back, and cross backs to front. Any reason to NOT do it this way?

 

none whatsoever - modern tires can rotate in either direction unless they are marked with a rotation arrow.

The rotation pattern in the owners manual ensures the tires wear pretty evenly since they will spend 25% at each corner and 50% rotating in each direction.

 

I didn't think it'd be a problem, esp. since it's in the manual to do it that way. But OTOH experience outweighs type anyday!

Thanks

 

I agree - my experience has been that tire rotation doesn't have a big impact on tire life anyway. Keep them inflated, keep the alignment right and drive. As long as you don't do much high-speed cornering they wear pretty evenly.

I know for fact that the tires have never been rotated on my old man's car and they are all fine after over 40k.

 

Front to Rear Tire rotation is a good thing. If you don't rotate them, your front tires will wear out 20,000 miles before the rear ones. Replacing all four at the same time provides better handling. Side to side rotation is recommended but not as critical. Unless you drive on very bad roads or have an alignment problem, it won't make much difference.

I will not follow the 5000 mile rotation interval just because it's too much work. My experience is that a 10,000 or 12,000 mile rotation interval will provide even wear as long as you don't have alignment or suspension problems.

 

Is your "old man's car" a RWD vehicle? With those, it may be possible to have generally even tire wear with no rotation. However, on a FWD vehicle (or FWD-biased AWD, as the FEH/MMH/MTH are) you will definitely wear out the front tires long before the rear tires if you do not rotate them. This may not be bad, some people purposely do this so that the first time they buy tires, they're only buying two for the front. It could be possible to work it so that even when the rears need replacing (maybe 80-100k miles or more) you might still be able to only buy two, at that point.

 

I'm rotating mine per the diagram in the owner's manual, but at 10k not 5k. I'm also rotating the full size spare by swapping the spare with the wheel going to the RR.

 

It's a front-wheel drive GM driven very gently by an old couple. Car probably hasn't been out of second gear in four years. The tires will dry rot before they wear our. But, honestly, they are worn very evenly and I know they haven't been rotated since the right-front has leaked slowly since they got it.

 

Well, the gentle driving is probably what makes it happen. In that case, there wouldn't be much additional stress on the front tires (accelleration, braking, cornering) than compared to the rears, just whatever difference the weight bias puts on them.

For a normal driver, though, not rotating tires, especially on a FWD vehicle, will easily wear out the fronts twice or three times as fast as the rears.

'Course, I know people who have worn out the rears on RWD cars at abnormally low mileage (but we won't go there 'cuz this is a forum about HIGH mpg vehicles) !!

 

Just rotated mine after 21K, should have been sooner but kept procrastinating...