Tire Rotation Interval ?

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Originally Posted By: krzyss
5000k miles is a lot of miles.

Krzys


Yeah, I wish my tires lasted anywhere near that long.
 
You mean your tires don't last 100,000,000 miles? You must not be rotating frequently enough! Ha!
wink.gif




5000 miles is a good interval.
 
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I've been only rotating my tires front to back because in the late 1970's I did cross rotations and a couple of times the steel belts came apart. Are the tires that are made now a days (aside from the tires that have a one way tread pattern) able to be mounted to roll in the opposite direction without the issues of tread separation like we had in the past? This is not a joking post, I'm serious. I have not cross rotated tires on my personal vehicles or work trucks since the 70's.
 
Originally Posted By: xtell
...Are the tires that are made now a days (aside from the tires that have a one way tread pattern) able to be mounted to roll in the opposite direction without the issues of tread separation like we had in the past? ...


Absolutely! You can cross-rated your modern radial tires. Early radials of the 1970's (new tech back then!) were not as durable as tires made today. Tire technology has come a LONG way since then.
 
Originally Posted By: xtell
I've been only rotating my tires front to back because in the late 1970's I did cross rotations and a couple of times the steel belts came apart. Are the tires that are made now a days (aside from the tires that have a one way tread pattern) able to be mounted to roll in the opposite direction without the issues of tread separation like we had in the past? This is not a joking post, I'm serious. I have not cross rotated tires on my personal vehicles or work trucks since the 70's.


Back in the 1970's - the early days of steel belted radial tires, there was a chemical - hold on, I'll look it up - HMT (hexamethylenetetramine) - that was commonly used as an bonding agent in tire rubber. Unfortunately, it produced amines which caused corrosion in the presence of water.

Also, it was discovered that the separations caused by this corrosion first appeared on one side of the wire and later grew to the other side of the wire. This lead folks to recommend not changing the direction of rotation of the tire - and rotating the tires on the same side of the car accomplishes that.

I am of the opinion that that recommendation was a way to shift the blame off the tire manufacturer - that the separation, once started, was going to grow around the wire anyway and that the torque on the tire was why the separation appeared on one side first - AND - it's only that the torque due to forward motion is much more frequent than the torque due to braking.

Oh and HMT was replaced by HMMM (hexamethoxymethylmelamine) and the corrosion problem went away - and so did the reason for the same side rotation recommendation.

Please note: I am not a chemist and what I wrote above about the chemicals is based on a conversation I had with a chemist who was involved in the 1970's in analyzing what was going on. I hope I got it right.

- BUT -

The separation mechanism for current tires (and tires from the Ford/Firestone situation 17 years ago) is different. Those separations start just off the wire, in the rubber matrix, on the underside edge of the top belt. It grows around the edge, but more importantly, between the 2 belts, until it reaches the point where the centrifugal forces exceed the adhesion - and the top belt detaches from the bottom belt. A cap ply not only reduces the amount of stress, but also acts as a restraint against the centrifugal force. A tire with a cap ply will still have a separation, but it detaches much, much, much further down the road.

This is a long way of saying that ALL tires currently made - and that includes directional and asymmetrical tires - can be rotated in any pattern without fear of compromising the structural integrity of the tire. In fact, no tire manufacturer I know of currently recommends same side rotation (as opposed to cross rotation).
 
I usually do mine twice a year.


On the accent its once a year(per set of tires)
which is around 7500 miles for the all seasons
and 2500 for the winter tires.


So I'd say I fall in your median of 5000-7000

Even with a full time awd(subaru) the fronts will wear the edges more.. and sometimes the back will feather abit.
so although they wear more evenly you still want to rotate.
 
Thanks for the reply's guys. I have not given cross rotation much thought over the years, due to past issues with tires. Good to know that the problems associated with cross rotation and tread separation are now a non issue. I'll try the "X" pattern tire rotation.
 
Originally Posted By: xtell
Thanks for the reply's guys. I have not given cross rotation much thought over the years, due to past issues with tires. Good to know that the problems associated with cross rotation and tread separation are now a non issue. I'll try the "X" pattern tire rotation.


What rotation pattern does the factory recommend for your vehicle? "X" pattern?
My last few owners manuals said "modified x" which I do at each oil change.
 
Originally Posted By: Papa Bear
Originally Posted By: xtell
Thanks for the reply's guys. I have not given cross rotation much thought over the years, due to past issues with tires. Good to know that the problems associated with cross rotation and tread separation are now a non issue. I'll try the "X" pattern tire rotation.


What rotation pattern does the factory recommend for your vehicle? "X" pattern?
My last few owners manuals said "modified x" which I do at each oil change.


I've seen listed front to back and "X" pattern listed in my owners manuals. All these years, I just figured I keep the rotation from front to back for all of them because of the terrible condition of tires when I rotated in an "X" pattern. However, as I stated the problems I was having with tires was back in the 70"s. I just never gave it much thought to change my rotation pattern. I'm glad you guys presented updated data where as I can cross rotate modern tires without an issue.
 
Just doing the X pattern is not a good idea. You want the modifed X. Front tires to the back, then cross the back tires to the front. That way each tire will eventually be on every corner of the car, evening out the tire wear.
 
I don't get much difference in wear from my left side to my ride side tires so just the "X" pattern works great for me.

If you do choose to use the modified "X" pattern at a 5k interval, keep in mind that two of the tires will be rotating in the same direction for 10k miles which can increase the amount of heal-toe wear and tire noise. Some vehicles and some tires are more sensitive to this than others.
 
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