Tire rotation - another one!

[bmephdinco]

Hi y'all,

I'm sure this is asked over and over - and I apologize, but I didn't want to hack anyone's thread.

My car is at 22,100 mi - the recommendation is oil change and tire rotation at 22,500. So do I have to get my tires rotated then? Does rotating your tires do much?

I heard discount tire and costco rotate for free, even if you didn't buy from them - can anyone confirm this? Should I make the dealer do it (got two tires from them with the car)? I know walmart is $10 for all tires so I wouldn't want to pay over that...

Also, as this is the "newest" car I've had - do I have to go to the dealer for tire/oil stuff or just whereever?

Thanks y'all!

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I go to a good mechanic for all the work on my Subaru, now that it's outside of warranty. Not trusting those cheap oil change places again.

I just got an oil change and tire rotation and get my tires rotated on the oil change when my car odometer turns over X0,000 - so every 10K miles.

[tskeeter]

While rotating tires is recommended, the only benefit that I can see to rotating your tires is that it allows all four times to wear at about the same rate.

I know that the conventional wisdom is that rotating tires extends the life of the tire, but I don't see how that can be true. I think that any set of four tires will last a certain number of miles. If you don't rotate the tires, the tires on the drive axle will wear out sooner than than the tires on the non-drive axle. But the un-rotated tires on the non-drive axle will last longer than if those same tires had been rotated to the drive axle. The additional miles accumulated by the tires on the non-drive axle will offset the fewer miles accumulated by the un-rotated tires on the drive axle. Rotated, or un-rotated, the total miles accumulated by the four tires would be nearly the same. (If you rotate the tires and the tires last 50K miles, you'd get 200K tire miles of service out of the four tires. If you don't rotate the tires and the drive axle tires last 30K miles and the non-drive axle tires last 70K miles, you'd get 200K tire miles of service out of the four tires.)

In my mind, it largely comes down to whether you want to buy tires two at a time or four at a time? (I recognize there are some other considerations if you don't drive many miles or some other circumstance dictates that you should rotate the tires on your car.)

As for me, I rotate my tires when I think about it and when I have time to fiddle with it, but not at specific mileage intervals, so all four tires are worn out at about the same time.

[TD2K]

I've been rotating my tires for the last few sets and have found much more even wear. I've also been getting them aligned more frequently which is likely another factor but at the price of the tires and that it's done for free at the place where I bought them, I'm going to continue to rotate them every other oil change.

[ZaireinHD]

for my show car I run through a set of 4 every year, purchased two at a time.
I drive fast - too fast and they are the cheaper performance tires.
I NEVER get the recommended mileage out of them!
HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!! come to think about it don't rotate them!

because I purchase two and put them on the front and move the front to the back in around April to June
then purchase the second set around October to December and move the fronts to the back

[rovo]

Dec 13, 2011 19:11:23 GMT -5 ZaireinHD said:

for my show car I run through a set of 4 every year, purchased two at a time.
I drive fast - too fast and they are the cheaper performance tires.
I NEVER get the recommended mileage out of them!
HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!! come to think about it don't rotate them!

because I purchase two and put them on the front and move the front to the back in around April to June
then purchase the second set around October to December and move the fronts to the back

You use the term "show car" but I must be thinking of something different. I can't imagine burning through tires at the rate you stated. Race car?

[ZaireinHD]

Right RACE CAR!! LOL
lets change that to daily driver.
estimated something like 18 to 23 miles one way to work?
speed limit is 65 but I do minimum of 75 mph and at least once per week hit 100 mph
(there is a stretch of highway going to/from work that is usually just open ;D)
then there's the lunch errands, weekend errands, going out, etc.
LOL - I jokes with a co-worker if I could drive my car from my desk in the office to the Xerox machine I would ;D
I like to drive
;D

[Artemis Windsong]

Rotate now.

Lesson learned. My 30,000 mile tires were not rotated on schedule, which both of us thought they had been. Now the rear tires are cupped and the front is out of alignment. I still had about 10,000 miles left on these babies.

[ZaireinHD]

I pulled out my receipt folder and spreadsheet to take a look
2011
July 07 - 2 Yokohama YK50 @ $115ea

2010
Nov 16 - 2 Falken ZE512 @ $87ea

2009
Oct 20 - 2 Falken ZE512 @ $85EA
Sep 18 - 1 Falken ZE512 @ $50
Apr 09 - 1 Falken ZE512 @ $85

2008
June 28 - 2 Falken ZE512 @ $76ea
June 18 - 2 Falke ZE512 @ $82ea

[tskeeter]

Dec 22, 2011 11:18:31 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Rotate now.

Lesson learned. My 30,000 mile tires were not rotated on schedule, which both of us thought they had been. Now the rear tires are cupped and the front is out of alignment. I still had about 10,000 miles left on these babies.

Unfortunately, rotating the tires would not have prevented or fixed either of these issues. All rotating the tires would have done is expand the tire damage to more tires. Cupping is frequently caused by tires that are out of balance or by worn shocks or struts that are no longer doing their job. The alignment issue is an alignment issue, which can not be fixed by rotating the tires.

Your best defense is to learn how to recognize when something is wrong with your car. If your steering "pulls" to one side or the other or if the steering wheel vibrates at all speeds, you probably have a front end alignment problem. If the steering wheel vibrates only over a narrow range of speed, you have an out of balance front tire or the shocks/struts are worn out. Vibrations you feel through the seat of the car or through the floor of the car are usually caused by a rear tire/suspension problem. Constant vibration across a wide range of speeds = alignment problem, vibration that comes and goes depending on the speed you are driving = out of balance tire. If you have a "floaty" feeling after you have gone over a large bump, you're probably due for shocks/struts. The "floaty" feeling is caused by your vehicle bouncing up and down several times after you have gone over a bump. The "bounce test" frequently used to evaluate shock wear is that if you bounce one corner of the car several times, and the car continues to bounce more than two times after you have stopped bouncing the car, the shocks/struts are not doing their job. Some people consider more than one bounce to have failed this test. This test is done for each of the four shocks/ struts on the car.

Additional note. If your steering wheel vibrates when you are slowing down or stopping, your front brake rotors are probably warped. This can be a common problem if you regularly drive in very heavy traffic, such as Los Angeles. There are two fixes. Replace the rotors, or turning the rotors to make the braking surfaces flat again. Since turning the rotors removes metal, this process increases the likelihood that you will over heat and warp the rotors again. Unless your automobile has the wheel bearings built into the rotor (which are pretty expensive to replace), I'd probably opt for replacing the rotors. Disclosure: when I lived in LA, I kept a spare set of freshly turned rotors on hand for each of the cars. This allowed me to quickly switch out rotors as needed, which seemed to be a couple of times a year, and was less expensive than replacing rotors frequently.

[ZaireinHD]

Dec 22, 2011 12:04:59 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Dec 22, 2011 11:18:31 GMT -5 Artemis Windsong said:

Rotate now.

Lesson learned. My 30,000 mile tires were not rotated on schedule, which both of us thought they had been. Now the rear tires are cupped and the front is out of alignment. I still had about 10,000 miles left on these babies.

Unfortunately, rotating the tires would not have prevented or fixed either of these issues. All rotating the tires would have done is expand the tire damage to more tires.

yup tskeeter is right on