Will VERY frequent rotation reduce tread wear?

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Aug 14, 2015
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My Sienna has traditionally chewed up tires. I usually get 50% at best of warrantied mileage. First I thought it was because I bought the cheapo 40K tires, but this is the case even with better tires. One 65K set (AT house brand Arizonians) got 20,000 miles. I always get great prorates because I rotate regularly, so that's not the issue--I go every 6-8K miles. My most recent set was Goodyear (at least 80K warranty), and I got 38K miles out of them (I could have taken them down a bit more, most or all were at 4/32, but I wanted something better for the winter rains we were having).

My question, however--would I get more tread life if I were to rotate them religiously every 5000 miles? Mathematically, if tread wear is linear, I'm thinking that it shouldn't matter. But the last time I went to Americas Tire, the guy suggested that.

I replaced the Goodyears with Cooper CS5 Grand Touring in January. The Cooper site says my size starts out at 11.5/32. I took them to get aired up at AT today, and he suggested that I get them rotated (after only about 4,500 miles) because the two front were 8 & 9/32, while the rear were both 10/32. FWIW, with these Coopers, I have maintained them at 42 hot (manual says 35 cold)--I have aired them up at least once between the time in January that I bought them, and today's air up.

So would 5000 mile rotations minimize tread wear in this application?
 
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Actually, I think decreasing rotation intervals would accelerate wear. I don't do much reading on tires, but from what I have seen, immediately after a rotation or when a new set it put on, there's an initial increased rate of wear before the tire "sets in". The theory is that pressure applied and usage applied on the driver's side front creates a certain wear pattern that differs from the other corners. When moving said tire to a different corner, there's an increased rate of wear as the new pattern is created.

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can chime in and correct this if it's incorrect.
 
If I am not mistaken Sienna is notorious for eating tires.
I suspect you can do nothing to improve it short of replacing the vehicle (with different model) or removing weight from the car (may be impractical to dangerous).

KrzyÅ›
 
If your alignment is right then it could be either low air pressure or pavement that eats tires. Or load weight you haul in the van.
Some roads are paved rougher than others and can speed up tire wear a lot.
Since you run high air pressure then it'd be pavement, imho. Also, I think if your manual says 35psi cold then may be you should not go over 37-38 cold. Driving on Nevada highways on a hot sunny day I saw psi increase only by 2-3 points compared to cold.
Doing tire rotations more often than every second oil change makes no sense to me.
 
Does running a tire suitable for cars have a higher rate of wear if on a heavy vehicle? Maybe the answer is going to a little heavier duty tire rates for SUV and light trucks would help but at the same time would sacrifice some mpg.
 
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If you buy a new set of tires rated for your vehicle, for about 10 bucks a tire for the "lifetime" rotate and balance, walmart will do it for free every 6K miles.

The Wife's Armada chewed through the OEM Michelin tires in 35K, no unusual knots or tread wear..they were just done. I bought some new tires on amazon cheaper than walmart sold them, loaded them in the back, took them to walmart and had them mount them, bought the lifetime rotate and balance.
 
Isn't 5000 the standard anyway? Like you're supposed to rotate tires every 5k anyway

The next time you need tires, know that the General Grabber AT2 comes with 14/32 tread
smile.gif
 
AT only charges 19 a tire for lifetime rotate & balance, plus they give great prorates to me, and usually a rebate if I use their store CC, and 6 mos no interest, so I'll probably stick with them. Plus, the local WM TLE doesn't inspire confidence in me; the one I have gone to for batteries is quite a bit farther than the local AT, so I'll most likely keep with them.


Originally Posted by thastinger
If you buy a new set of tires rated for your vehicle, for about 10 bucks a tire for the "lifetime" rotate and balance, walmart will do it for free every 6K miles.

The Wife's Armada chewed through the OEM Michelin tires in 35K, no unusual knots or tread wear..they were just done. I bought some new tires on amazon cheaper than walmart sold them, loaded them in the back, took them to walmart and had them mount them, bought the lifetime rotate and balance.
 
I got 20K out of what I'm almost positive was a 40K set of tires by doing just that. So I could save $19 per tire by turning down the lifetime rotation/balancing, then buy 2 new tires every 20K. That would replace rotations every 6-8K, so it would save me some time, but on the other hand, I wouldn't get the prorate, and possibly mfgr rebate b/c I'd be no longer buying a set of four. Financially assuming a 20K life of an unrotated tire, I'm not sure that makes sense. If I had more money than time, I could easily see the logic of this, however.

Originally Posted by rooflessVW
Don't rotate, replace them as they wear out in pairs.
 
I don't know, one OEM (Mich?) said 6-8K, and that is also what AT has insisted upon, so that's always been my target.

I just might end up picking my tires according to tread depth, although I read a CR study that had Coopers & Michelins as having the shortest breaking distance, so that is one reason why I went with the Coopers this time around. But in a real world scenario, will stopping at 140 ft versus 160 feet mean that much if you only have 20 feet between you and the car in front of you? That is probably going to end up as another thread here when it is time to buy tires again. At any rate, perhaps I should be experimenting with tread depth.

As far as the suggestion to buy another car, this thing is never going to win any beauty contest, but its been so reliable they will have to pry my cold dead fingers off the steering wheel before I give this baby up.
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Not much dead weight in it at all....

Originally Posted by slacktide_bitog
Isn't 5000 the standard anyway? Like you're supposed to rotate tires every 5k anyway

The next time you need tires, know that the General Grabber AT2 comes with 14/32 tread
smile.gif
 
How the tires are used can make a HUGE difference. I don't even worry about tread mileage since most of my daily driving is a 3 mile radius with lots of turning. Just to go to the grocery store almost everyday to get fresher food, is a 2 mile round-trip with 16 turns. So after a 100 trips to the store I've turned a corner 1600 times every 200 miles. That is the biggest reason why my tires only last 1/2 as long as someone that commutes 200 miles daily with the same number of turns.
I also always maintain the correct pressure, rotate as needed, and always wear out 4 tires at the same time, every time on all of my vehicles. So, sometimes I might be rotating every 2000 miles on my cars, and every 10,000 on my wife's car.
Every motion made with the car in the "circle of traction" wears tires. Acceleration, braking, and cornering, plus a lot less wear from just rolling down the road.
 
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Now that you mention it, the same guy I talked to at AT, also said that city driving is much worse on tires than freeway. he said that he's seen freeway tires actually exceed the warrantied mileage. The Sienna is almost always short tripped, 15 miles max and usually less than that, with a lot of breaking and accelerating and turning. So perhaps this is a lot of the reason....

Originally Posted by Traction
How the tires are used can make a HUGE difference. I don't even worry about tread mileage since most of my daily driving is a 3 mile radius with lots of turning. Just to go to the grocery store almost everyday to get fresher food, is a 2 mile round-trip with 16 turns. So after a 100 trips to the store I've turned a corner 1600 times every 200 miles. That is the biggest reason why my tires only last 1/2 as long as someone that commutes 200 miles daily with the same number of turns.
 
I personally owned one Sienna (1999 to 2008) and it was rough on tires and I'm not an aggressive driver. The vehicle was heavy and used medium size sedan tires and I could just barely get them to last the rated mileage. The current Sienna (2007) in my family is the same way and it's driven by a family member that is tough on vehicles. In this case, 50,000 mile tires are getting replaced at 40,000 miles. Since you're only getting only 1/2 the rated mileage, something could be wrong with alignment. If not that, your driving habits or the path you regularly commute is particularly hard on tires.

As for rotating... It helps the tires wear evenly. How it impacts longevity probably depends on the vehicle, the tires, the driver's habits and the regular commute patterns.


Ray
 
Originally Posted by paulri
Now that you mention it, the same guy I talked to at AT, also said that city driving is much worse on tires than freeway. he said that he's seen freeway tires actually exceed the warrantied mileage. The Sienna is almost always short tripped, 15 miles max and usually less than that, with a lot of breaking and accelerating and turning. So perhaps this is a lot of the reason....

Originally Posted by Traction
How the tires are used can make a HUGE difference. I don't even worry about tread mileage since most of my daily driving is a 3 mile radius with lots of turning. Just to go to the grocery store almost everyday to get fresher food, is a 2 mile round-trip with 16 turns. So after a 100 trips to the store I've turned a corner 1600 times every 200 miles. That is the biggest reason why my tires only last 1/2 as long as someone that commutes 200 miles daily with the same number of turns.



Much of our driving is straight line highway. We always (yes, always) exceed the mileage rating for tires (unless a tire is damaged). The majority of tire wear happens when turning corners or on rough pavement-we have smooth roads and very little city driving.

I also never rotate the tires, and they've always worn relatively evenly.
 
Minivans are heavy; I'm not sure if any have been known to be easy on tires. I'd try a bit more air, but otherwise, unless if you can feel feathering before 5k, I'd just stick with 5k rotations.

Do post alignment specs--Capriracer has stated that most alignment specs have too large of a window for allowable measurements. It's possible to be at the edge and thus wear tires faster, yet have the shop insist that the alignment is fine.
 
OK I just took measurements for all treads, all tires. My measurements were not quite as far apart as the guy at AT today, but as could be expected, front tires were more worn down.

What was interesting (not in a good way) was that the tires have lost approximately 1/4 of their tread life (if they started at 11.5/32, and if I need to replace them at 4/32). The treads were 9-10/32. Going from 11.5/32 to 9.5/32 is approximately one-fourth of the 7.5/32 that is the distance between 11.5 and 4/32. I've only driven them some 5000 miles. Taking them down to 2/32 wouldn't really change that too much, but it would give me some more tread life.

I think I will be rotating them later this week, just to be sure.

I guess the excess wear is a combination of the fact that it is the Sienna, plus the primary city driving. But I will keep an eye on wear, and if the tires continue to wear like they are, there really is no reason for me to keep them inflated to 42 hot. Nobody here seems to be under the impression that rotating every 5K will extend tire wear. I think I might do it with these tires, just to make sure that AT doesn't have an aneurism when I bring in my 80,000 mile warranty tires at 20-30K miles. And given that I don't believe I've ever had an alignment, I think I'll look around for a special somewhere.

Thanks everyone for pitching in.
 
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My jag x-type goes through tires very rapidly. 20k on a set of 80k Michelin's. Alignment is perfect. It's the nature of that car
 
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