Flipping tires on rims for wear compensation?

[Fitz98]

I have a set of Michelin's on my 03 Suburban which unfortunately had some unidentified front suspension issues (Mainly shocks) which caused some uneven and choppy inner tire wear. They were rotated to the rear about 5k miles ago and now it is time for another rotation, but the treadwear still have not evened out, so I am hesitant to bring them back to the front yet.
Another thought I had, was since all the wear was to the inside, that I could have the tires flipped on the rims to bring the letters to the outside to extend the tread life. I am not a fan of letters out, but it is more about evening wear at this point.
A bigger concern is if the tire removers will destroy the rim seat surfaces of the tires on removal. I kept the old tires after they were removed (from Sams Club) when putting on the new tires and they were all chewed up where the rim seat was.

 

[old1]

Something wrong if the tire shop messes up the tire bead by taking it off (or on) the wheel. What if you got a nail in the tire, and they took it off to patch it?

 

[Fitz98]

It is possible the tire bead damage on the old tires was from something else, I do not know the history of those tires, I just assumed it was from removing the tires from the rim.

 

[old1]

I am not saying that they didn't do it, just that if they did, I would find another shop .

 

[A_Harman]

I did it once.
.
.
.
.
.
Not twice.

 

[eljefino]

You run the risk of bead damage. It gets worse the older the tire is as the rubber gets less pliable.

You're liable to hate driving on these flipped tires, but like you said, it's about equalizing wear.

 

[atikovi]

I've torn the bead on some tires with low profiles or old rubber from age. A shop should have a more advanced tire machine with those arms and levers to prevent that.

 

[gfh77665]

If you have already made the front end repairs, flipping the tires will not solve anything. You will have even wear now at this point regardless how the tires are mounted.

If you have not fixed the issue, then your tires are not the priority.

 

[71Chevyguy]

I did this on a car I used to own, a Chevy Sonic. It had about 40k on the original OEM 17" Kumho tires and you could tell that it was wearing the outer half a bit more than the inner half of the tires. I had Costco flip them and balance them. I admit it did drive a bit odd for the first few miles, I would say about 50 miles of being very darty and pulling. After that, it did fine and was back to normal. It did improve my tread life because it was now wearing more on the higher tread side of the tire. I admit it may have needed a bump in the alignment, but it did not pull at all and the steering wheel was perfectly straight. I traded it with the original tires still on it at almost 70k, still nowhere near the wear bars. So in my case, I think it made sense to flip the tires around to get maximum miles out of them. I would just suggest being careful right after doing it till the tires wear in and get back to normal. Just remember that if you don't fix the reason why it did it in the first place, it will just do the same to the other edge of the tire. Adding a few psi to the tires would help keep it off of the bad edge as well. Within reason of course.

 

[Fitz98]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
If you have already made the front end repairs, flipping the tires will not solve anything. You will have even wear now at this point regardless how the tires are mounted.

If you have not fixed the issue, then your tires are not the priority.

Good point, but don't insides of fronts wear more due to turning, even if there are no suspension issues, I thought that was one of the main reasons for rotating.
FWIW, I think I have fixed the issue. New shocks and torsion bar adjustment. Could still probably use an alignment. I will do this by the next set of tires. For now, I am monitoring the wear to see if the new shocks helped.

 

[gfh77665]

Originally Posted by Fitz98

Good point, but don't insides of fronts wear more due to turning, even if there are no suspension issues,


Both inside and outside edges of the front tires wear faster, because vehicles turn both left and right. That's true even if the alignment and front end components are perfect. If it was me, there is no way I would put them on the front again until they have evened out on the back enough to suit you. Keeping them on the back is your best chance to extend their life.

 

[meep]

Originally Posted by 71Chevyguy
I did this on a car I used to own, a Chevy Sonic. It had about 40k on the original OEM 17" Kumho tires and you could tell that it was wearing the outer half a bit more than the inner half of the tires. I had Costco flip them and balance them. I admit it did drive a bit odd for the first few miles, I would say about 50 miles of being very darty and pulling. After that, it did fine and was back to normal. It did improve my tread life because it was now wearing more on the higher tread side of the tire. I admit it may have needed a bump in the alignment, but it did not pull at all and the steering wheel was perfectly straight. I traded it with the original tires still on it at almost 70k, still nowhere near the wear bars. So in my case, I think it made sense to flip the tires around to get maximum miles out of them. I would just suggest being careful right after doing it till the tires wear in and get back to normal. Just remember that if you don't fix the reason why it did it in the first place, it will just do the same to the other edge of the tire. Adding a few psi to the tires would help keep it off of the bad edge as well. Within reason of course.


^^^^ good post. Experienced the same.

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Fitz98

Good point, but don't insides of fronts wear more due to turning, even if there are no suspension issues,


Both inside and outside edges of the front tires wear faster, because vehicles turn both left and right. That's true even if the alignment and front end components are perfect. If it was me, there is no way I would put them on the front again until they have evened out on the back enough to suit you. Keeping them on the back is your best chance to extend their life.

Maybe true on an antique car but every semi modern car I’ve encountered wears the inner edge faster than the outer up front.
This is completely in spec per the OEM alignment to “fix” it you need to not follow the OEM alignment spec.

On my newest car even the rear wears the inner edge (just more slowly than the front)

I have also had tires “flipped” opportunistically due to a sidewall blowout and had good results.

Due to how large tires are my little hand unit can’t unmount and remount so economically I don’t think it’s usually worth it (maybe extra 10,000 miles) but if your in there anyway due to an unexpected tire issue probably worth it anyway.

 

[CapriRacer]

Since you brought this 2 year old thread back, I feel the need to point out that tire beads get damaged from mounting, not demounting. The toe of the bead has to go over the lip of the rim and it is common not to use mounting lube, so the bead toe gets "caught" and tears.

 

[tshephard]

I have flipped tires a couple of times when the wear rate calcs showed it would pay for itself.
Each time only a single axle after multiple rotations.
Family seems to wear outside edges, hard corner-ers.