Rotated tires the wrong way?

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The first time I had my tires rotated, I accidentally told my mechanic to rotate them with the rearward cross pattern (A) in the picture.

However since I have a FWD car, It was supposed to be a Forward Cross tire rotation (C).

The next time I had a tire rotation, they did the Forward Cross rotation. This essentially brings back my tires to the position they were in when I bought the tires.


Is there any long term issue for having the wrong rotation done? Should I get another rotation again to get them wearing evenly?
 
Nah... You're good to go, just keep the tire pressure checked and keep rotating the same way from now on.
 
Doesn't matter if you do rearward cross or forward cross...Duh, as long as you're consistent with how you rotate, eventually, the tires will be on all 4 corners of the vehicle.....Your diagrams do not take DIRECTIONAL tires into account, which I have...All I can do is front to back and forth....then have the tires broken off the wheels and turned over, so they'll end up on the other side of the vehicle.
Find something more important to obsess over.
 
Personally, I've never seen a big difference between left and right wear on any of mine, so I simply swap front to rear on same side. I suppose if you have really soft tires and big road crowns in your area then you might see a L/R difference and the crossing would make sense, but that all depends on your setup/location.
 
Originally Posted by ctechbob
Personally, I've never seen a big difference between left and right wear on any of mine, so I simply swap front to rear on same side. I suppose if you have really soft tires and big road crowns in your area then you might see a L/R difference and the crossing would make sense, but that all depends on your setup/location.


I find cross rotating quiets the tires down on MT Equipped subaru which tend to have very even wear front to back.
as long as I dont wait too long.
 
Have always done "A" on all vehicles with good results. My thought is that the tires on the rear move forward to rotate same direction on the steering wheels.
 
Originally Posted by 1WildPig
Nah... You're good to go, just keep the tire pressure checked and keep rotating the same way from now on.
This. Key is you're rotating them. No worries.
 
I've always done the forward cross. I have a little mnemenic aid.

Jack the back, swap 'em
Then front to rear one side at a time.

I've always had evenly wearing tires.

My old pal who mocked tire rotation? He's gone now.
 
Many people don't know a few of the reasons to rotate non-directional tires side to side, beyond the obvious difference in wear rates front to rear.

1) Tread blocks wear at the leading edge, caused by braking. (can cause tire noise)
2) Slight differences in wear rates side to side
3) Increased wear rate on the Right Rear tire on rear wheel drive vehicles with limited slip differentials or lead footed drivers.
 
My cars seems to develop feathered tires on the rear (on my second car doing that, for some reason the wife has never had that issue). So I stick with a forward cross (my vehicles are FWD's).

Some people never rotate and do ok, so I'm in the camp of, it doesn't matter. Do the "proper" rotation next time, but don't lose sleep over it, it's close enough.
 
THEE most important thing about rotating tires is the front to rear difference.

Steer tires tend to wear the shoulders and drive tires tend to wear the centers. In a RWD, rotation evens out the wear and results in a longer life - up to 15%. In a FWD, the front tires are doing both actions, so the fronts wear more rapidly - about 2 1/2 times as fast as the rears.

You want your tires to wear out at the same time. That way the car maintains its front/rear handling balance throughout the life of the tires.
 
Originally Posted by Cujet

1) Tread blocks wear at the leading edge, caused by braking. (can cause tire noise)


Nothing a good ole' burnout can't fix
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Originally Posted by Pew
Originally Posted by Cujet

1) Tread blocks wear at the leading edge, caused by braking. (can cause tire noise)


Nothing a good ole' burnout can't fix
laugh.gif





crackmeup2.gif


Yes, I think you may be correct.... That could serve to even out the tread blocks.

On a serious note, many modern vehicles have larger rear brakes than they would have had in the past. The trend is to use the rear brakes more under light loads. This gives a better feel, lower chance of upset if low traction is encountered and often less nose dive. But it does lead to rear tire tread blocks wearing at the leading edges.
 
Originally Posted by CapriRacer


You want your tires to wear out at the same time. That way the car maintains its front/rear handling balance throughout the life of the tires.



Sounds like a conspiracy theory to force people to buy 4 tires at a time.
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Since "experts" claim you want to keep the tires with more tire depth on the rear, then tire rotations are not necessary until the front tires wears out and you buy 2 new tires, then the old ones go up front and the new ones are installed on the rear.
 
Originally Posted by UG_Passat
Originally Posted by CapriRacer


You want your tires to wear out at the same time. That way the car maintains its front/rear handling balance throughout the life of the tires.



Sounds like a conspiracy theory to force people to buy 4 tires at a time.
grin2.gif
grin2.gif
grin2.gif


Since "experts" claim you want to keep the tires with more tire depth on the rear, then tire rotations are not necessary until the front tires wears out and you buy 2 new tires, then the old ones go up front and the new ones are installed on the rear.


Sometimes consistency is key.
 
I do a cross (X) rotation when I do mine. I find it evens out any feathering, and since they will end up rotating both ways anyway, it just makes sense to me.
 
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