Tire Rotation Pattern

[Jonny Z]

My owners manual tells me to rotate tires as such:

This is an 02 Camry, with non-directional wheels or tires from the factory. Is there is reason why they don't want you to do it like this?

 

[Quattro Pete]

If the tires are non-directional, then there's probably no reason why not.

I'm guessing Toyota uses (or may start using) directional tires on some models, and they don't want to bother with reprinting the owner manuals, so just to be safe, they say not to rotate side-to-side on all of them.

 

[moribundman]

As Quattro Pete already said, directional tires may be one reason. Beyond that, changing the direction of tire rotation causes temporarily increased wear, because the tread blocks have to adjust. On most of my past cars I chose to rotate the (non-directinal) tires criss-cross for more even wear. On my Audi I don't switch sides, because the tires wear evenly enough.

 

[RacerE7773]

As soon as we can get new tires I am staying with back to front. I had my tires rotated by the place I got them and now the tires are egg-shaped. They were cheap tires to start with, but it's aggravating to drive like you're on a woodland trail and you're on a regular road.

 

[Jonny Z]

Quote:

---

As soon as we can get new tires I am staying with back to front. I had my tires rotated by the place I got them and now the tires are egg-shaped. They were cheap tires to start with, but it's aggravating to drive like you're on a woodland trail and you're on a regular road.

---

You are saying that the cross rotation pattern caused your tires to go out of round? Is this correct?

 

[ewetho]

Have to look at tires.

But generally front wheel drive platforms use the bottom map. Rear wheel drive platforms just make the nose the other end of the map and your set.

The top is for directional tires or a suitable alternate pattern most of the time for almost everything else. No big deal really. Most guys I know only rotate front to back. Not much of an issue most of the time but the cross rotation is a bit better.

If your book says only front to back then just shrug your shoulders and worry about something else it is not worth it here.

 

[tenderloin]

http://www.michelinman.com/care/tip2.html

 

[alreadygone]

For simplicity's sake we allways X front, straight forward with rears reguardless of drive system (other than directional tires wich must stay on same side). In over 15 years never had a problem.

Tires separating due to change of direction ,,,total hogwash.

Bob

 

[RTexasF]

Isn't the crisscross pattern to eliminate radial pull? The one time I roated my front wheel drive tires from front to back it pulled to the right. When I crossed the two fronts, as they should have been, the pull was eliminated.

 

[02350024vctd]

What is the rotation pattern for a dually?

 

[ewetho]

Basically you can go either was in the rear but simply,

Outside tire goes to the inside, Inside goes to the front, front goes to the outside.
No need to cross rotate.

You can reverse it as long as you keep the pattern the same every time.

 

[Swift]

I cross the fronts to the rear and bring the rear straight forward.

 

[Ugly3]

I don't rotate my tires. I keep the alignment is order and replace the fronts if they ware out before the rears (not usually). Been doing it for years and have no unusual wear patterns.

 

[ewetho]

One last thought, almost forgot sometimes Toyota uses directional wheels. That is another possibility.

 

[Black_Thunder]

i cross rotate, if you do have a slight bit of uneven featherwear you can usually even them out my cross-rotating that will save you vibration problems in the future, that and help eliminate cross-hatch flatspotting

 

[Lonnie]

In light duty trucks and SUV's, not 4x4 we have experimented quite a bit and actually tracked different methods because of the expense of the tires. It goes like this, spare to the right front, right front to the right rear, right rear to the left front, left front to the left rear and left rear to the spare. We did the tread depth stuff and tracked mileage. After all this stuff we also made a deal with Michelin for a screaming deal on Cross Terrain's and the cost per mile has been better than several less expensive tires. We cross them anywhere between 5 and 10k miles.

 

[mazduh30]

Me thinks to keep it simple. The "D" diagram works "good" for both directional and front wheel drive. The "A" diagram works the best for front wheel drive.