How to go about doing a rotation myself Acura tl

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PeterGreen

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I need to rotate the tires on my car, an Acura TL with Sh-Awd, which has about 11000 on it. All of the rims are in their original factory positions.

The question is how do I go about doing this myself. The factory Michelins are directional, I believe, and I want to go front to rear and vice versa. If I jack up the rear of the car in the center, I can put jack stands under the two rear jacking points, under the rear doors, but then what? Do I jack up the front? Do I need four wheel stands? Is it safe to jack the front when the car is sitting on two jack stands?

An alternate method would be to use the factory spare, which is a donut, take off one tire at a time. Question is if the donut's diameter is considerably smaller than the factory rims, which are 18 inchers with 45 profile tires, can I safely jack up the car when there is a donut on the other end, or will the car be too low to jack high enough to get the standard rim off?

I realize I could just pay a tire place to do this for $30 but then I have to worry that they will overtorque the lug nuts.

Any suggestions for a plan of action?
 
Really all you need to do with directionals is jack up one side of the car first, swap the tires, then repeat on the other side.

Yes you could use the donut to change one at a time.
 
Do you have Discount Tire near you ? They do rotation for free even you didn't buy tires from them.

If you don't have Discount Tire nearby then you should loosen all bolts, jack up front or rear left and put 1 jack stand under it, jack up another end and put second jack stand under it, rotate the tires on that side then do the other side.
 
Originally Posted By: PeterGreen
The factory Michelins are directional, I believe


The factory tires are probably asymmetric. Directional tires never found much favor with car manufacturers. Check your owner's manual for rotation pattern. Usually AWD vehicles should have their rotations done in an X pattern, i.e., front left gets switched with rear right and front right gets changed out for rear left.
 
I always rotate my own tires, I don't trust the yahoo's that work at many of the shops. If you start with one corner on a jack stand, you can move the other tires to the new location until you get back to the jack stand holding up the corner where the tire is missing. I always rotate my tires in this pattern: RF to RR, RR to LF, LF to LR, LR to RF. It does not take very long. I rotate every 6-7.5k (roughly 1x per year for me).
 
If they are directionals, you can't cross-rotate.

If they are directionals, the sidewall will have "rotation" with an arrow by it.
 
An easy way to do this is to use two jacks and jack up both ends of one side.
I have both a floor jack and a bottle jack.
I save the car's jack for that rare emergency tire change, since the jack that came with the car will not stand up to much use.
Swap the tires front to rear and then repeat on the other side.
 
Here's how I do ours:

1) Break all the lug nuts loose.
2) Jack up the front (where most of the weight is) and secure it on jack stands.
3) Remove the front tires and clean them, measure them, inflate them, etc, and then put them into position at the rear of the car where they will go.
4) Jack up the rear of the car using the rear jack point.
5) Remove one rear tire at a time and immediately swap it with the replacement.
6) Tighten the rear lug nuts as much as you can and lower the rear of the car.
7) With the two rear wheels that are now off the car, clean them, measure them, inflate them, etc, and mount them to the front.
8) Tighten the front lug nuts as much as you can and lower the front of the car.
9) Torque all to the appropriate torque.

The theory here is to have the rear up in the air on the hydraulic jack for as little time as possible. Even still, you're not actually working under the car, so safety is still very much on your side. As long as you use the central jack point, and as long as the front jack stands are secure, either side of the back cannot roll over on you.

This allows me to rotate all four tires in whatever pattern I may choose depending on how they're wearing. In all, it takes about an hour; this is less time than actually driving to the store where I've already paid for lifetime rotation, waiting in a waiting room for someone *else* to work on my car.
 
Bad idea. Go to DT and let them rotate them 4 u. Wrenches set at 80 psi. no worries.
 
Just do them on one side at a time. Lift by the factory jack points, not the middle of the rocker panel.
 
Originally Posted By: FZ1
Bad idea. Go to DT and let them rotate them 4 u.

DT won't rotate them, this has already been covered. OP needs a new set of tires for the rear.
 
Originally Posted By: martinq
Originally Posted By: FZ1
Bad idea. Go to DT and let them rotate them 4 u.

DT won't rotate them, this has already been covered. OP needs a new set of tires for the rear.


WHAT are you talking about?

The thread you linked is about tires with vastly differing tread depths, a new car with 11,000 miles on it should not be that.

OP, what tires? If they are directional it is pretty easy since you can't cross them.
 
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
Originally Posted By: martinq
DT won't rotate them, this has already been covered. OP needs a new set of tires for the rear.

WHAT are you talking about?

DT (and others) will tell you that if you put your FRONT tires on the REAR of the car, the lack of tread-depth on the rear will cause you to spin-out, crash and splatter your (and your passengers) brains all over the road for miles and miles. Sorry, it's just a fact!

Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
The thread you linked is about tires with vastly differing tread depths, a new car with 11,000 miles on it should not be that.

The van in that post had one-year-old tires and the main drive was an 8-minute commute. After a year you have to buy a new set of tires for the rear, just like he did. It's a fact!
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: martinq
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
Originally Posted By: martinq
DT won't rotate them, this has already been covered. OP needs a new set of tires for the rear.

WHAT are you talking about?

DT (and others) will tell you that if you put your FRONT tires on the REAR of the car, the lack of tread-depth on the rear will cause you to spin-out, crash and splatter your (and your passengers) brains all over the road for miles and miles. Sorry, it's just a fact!

Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
The thread you linked is about tires with vastly differing tread depths, a new car with 11,000 miles on it should not be that.

The van in that post had one-year-old tires and the main drive was an 8-minute commute. After a year you have to buy a new set of tires for the rear, just like he did. It's a fact!


Ummm... OK.
 
Originally Posted By: Cardenio327
Originally Posted By: PeterGreen
The factory Michelins are directional, I believe


The factory tires are probably asymmetric. Directional tires never found much favor with car manufacturers. Check your owner's manual for rotation pattern. Usually AWD vehicles should have their rotations done in an X pattern, i.e., front left gets switched with rear right and front right gets changed out for rear left.


Best advice in this thread yet. Make sure they are directional first, and if they are then leave them alone. Don't even rotate them from front to back on the same side of the vehicle.

If they are asymmetrical or symmetrical, and non-directional, rotate them in the x-pattern. If you keep 2 out of the 4 on the same side of the car rotating in the same direction, they will develop a heel-toe pattern of wear and become loud. This is specific to an AWD car, because the tread blocks flex and wear faster on the "backside" of the block causing a ramp to develop. Having them rotate in the opposite direction will put the force on the other end of the block and ramp in the other direction, causing more of convex type of tread wear. This will reduce the road noise as the tire wears down further.
 
Originally Posted By: DuckRyder
Looks like the OE tires are Michelin Pilot MXM4 which are not directional, so follow:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=43

But ... think of the innocent people and the children! THE CHILDREN!!!

Originally Posted By: Cardenio327
The tolerance is 2/32" (1.6 mm). The front tires are allowed to have up to 2/32" more tread than the rears, which gives plenty of time to get the rotations done on time. ... If it were my van I wouldn't want to lend it to a family member or friend and have them wrap it around a telephone pole because I was too lazy to get the rotations done on time and then threw a fit coercing some poor impact gofer to do the rotation anyway even though it was dangerous to do so.


Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Anyone who puts the better tires in front should have his licence revoked unless and until he passes a college-level course in the physics of vehicular motion. This is basic physics, people!

Basic physics people. It's just a fact!

Brought to you by:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2936212&page=2
 
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