Tire rotation on AWD

[Hall]

My car is AWD and since I've owned it, I've rotated the tires or had Discount Tire rotate them, and we both do the same rear-to-front, criss-cross, etc rotation. A few months ago, I was paying more attention to the tire section in the manual (and confirmed that the FSM says the same), that they show to simply move the rears to the front and the front to the rears. No criss-cross. I thought this simple front-to-rear, rear-to-front was for directional tires ? I don't have directional tires.

To clarify, here's examples: https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/tire-rotation-patterns. I have been doing the rotation in the 1st image, far right. Owners manual says to do what's shown in the 2nd image, left pattern.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Just looked at my Forester's manual a few days ago and I think it recommended to bring the backs straight to the front and to cross the fronts going back.
This was for putting my "summer" tires (RT43s) back on and I didn't do a great job marking them late last fall when I took them off...not sure what kind of actual rotation I ended up with. Marked the winters more heavily with the chalk this time and put an indication of the year on there as I was also getting confused by apparent old markings on the RT43s, but the Hakkas are directional so there is less possible confusion.
The Generals are getting old for my tastes and I think this will be my last year with them, anyway...going to get more of a fun tire next time as these tires were not nearly as fun as the GY Eagle Sports I had as my last summer tires. The RT43s were more predictable in the rain and I had no worries about riding through early or late season snow, I will give them that!

 

[Hall]

I am starting to wonder if it's a mistake. At first I thought it was related to the 'coupe' version. They have different width tires for front vs rear so it can't be that. Those have to be rotated side to side only and no swapping front to rear. Or maybe from the factory it came with directional tires.

 

[Mr_Joe]

With AWD or 4WD with all the same tires I like them to roll opposite fairly often. For me that is usually the simple ‘X' rotation. My 2nd choice would be rear to front(same side) then cross the fronts as they come to the rear.

 

[vavavroom]

Cross-rotating temporarily increases wear on all four tires due to the directional change in rotation and it affects vehicle handling. Moving tires from the front to rear and vice versa works well if your tires wear evenly and is ideal since you wont change the handling characteristics of your vehicle much.

 

[Propflux01]

I cross rotate on every rotation on my FWD vehicle. I have never noticed any difference in wear, nor handling, any different than a 'traditional' rotation. The reason I do this, is I see no difference because you end up putting the back tire on the opposite sides front. essentially doing the same thing.

 

[vavavroom]

Even if you manage to squeeze a bit more life out of the tires by rotating them, the involved cost negates the savings unless you DIY. I generally don't rotate tires until the front tires are worn. Then the rears go on the front and new tires go on the rear. But that's on FWD. On AWD, I rotate only front to back to keep them just about evenly worn and I replace all four at the same time. As for whether or not you notice handling changes that may well depend on your vehicle and how much road feel it provides.

 

[bachman]

As per vavavroom, F / R is all I know of anymore. I've had cars with staggered tires where its the only option anyways but I recall many years ago, it was widely recommended avoiding problems by not doing the criss-cross pattern for a rotate. Maybe the old school belted tires were willy nilly about some having issues and some not.

Just to be clear, I'm uncertain my info is still relevant or highly accurate.

 

[CapriRacer]

First, the important thing about rotating tires is the front to rear portion. The fronts of cars/trucks do different things than the rears and the tires will wear differently. The whole idea of rotating tires is to even out the wear rate and the wear pattern.

On RWD cars, the wear rate is about the same front to rear, but the pattern is different: Steer tires wear on the shoulders, and drive tires wear in the center.

On FWD, the wear rate is dramatically different (about 2 1/2 times), but the pattern is about the same.

AWD cars tend to wear like RWD, - just less so.

I've estimated that rotating tires can give up to 15% longer life to a set of tires.

So it doesn't really matter what pattern is used on a AWD, but it is generally nice if a particular tires sees all 4 positions.

 

[Hall]

I see reasons for either way and at this point, I may go back to rear-to-front, front-to-rear. It's what Nissan specifies as well as other resources and people here vouch for it. Plus, it's certainly easier !

 

[JOD]

When you say "AWD", what exactly do you mean? My car is AWD, but it's predominantly FWD--so the pattern you're using is still applicable (and that's what's recommended by the mfg).

If it's similar to the Haldex system, the wear pattern is nearly identical to a FWD car.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by JOD
When you say "AWD", what exactly do you mean? My car is AWD, but it's predominantly FWD--so the pattern you're using is still applicable (and that's what's recommended by the mfg).

If it's similar to the Haldex system, the wear pattern is nearly identical to a FWD car.

Infiniti G35X (AWD). Even Infiniti says it's 80-90% RWD-biased. It's also Infiniti that says to just move the fronts to the rear and the rears to the front. No crossover, X pattern, etc.

 

[JOD]

Got it. Yeah, that's weird. And sorry, misunderstood--I thought you were using the pattern on the left. To me it seems like you're doing it correctly?

Any chance the OEM tires are directional?

 

[vavavroom]

I can't even remember when I used non-directional tires. 15 years ago? And my old BMW has also a staggered setup.

 

[JaySquared]

If your alignment is good then don't rotate unless you have to. A tire tread gauge is like $3 and can save you a bunch of work. Just rotate when it's needed.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by JOD
Got it. Yeah, that's weird. And sorry, misunderstood--I thought you were using the pattern on the left. To me it seems like you're doing it correctly?
I don't think either is "wrong" at this point.

Originally Posted by JOD
Any chance the OEM tires are directional?
I forgot to check. I still have the original window sticker and will see what it says. Even if Infiniti shipped the car with directional tires, they hardly "require" directional tires so if an owner replaces them with non-directional tires, is the manual inaccurate ? Sounds like that's still not the case, to be honest.

 

[Black_Thunder]

Sometimes just looking closely at the tread wear can determine if you should flip the direction of the tire to smooth the tread back out etc.

 

[UG_Passat]

The key point is rotate them often enough, that you don't have too much of a wear difference between each tire.

VW calls for 10,000 mile rotation to coincide with their maintenance schedule, which IMO, is way too long between rotations.

 

[bachman]

Originally Posted by UG_Passat
The key point is rotate them often enough, that you don't have too much of a wear difference between each tire.

VW calls for 10,000 mile rotation to coincide with their maintenance schedule, which IMO, is way too long between rotations.


Yeah, that's by far not real-world - 10k
You can so easily tell by viewing tires , tread wear, even or uneven and depth of the tread block etc...

I think the belted tires of years ago warned against side to side swaps due to the belts shifting off center. Anyone who know the prices of good tires and doesn't like to skimp isn't be cheap IMO being somewhat anal about monitoring the tire wear and doing the rotate front to rear accordingly to get the life and performance bang for buck.
If you have to do a side to side swap for a reason, it's probably an alignment issue.

 

[UG_Passat]

Originally Posted by bachman
Originally Posted by UG_Passat
The key point is rotate them often enough, that you don't have too much of a wear difference between each tire.

VW calls for 10,000 mile rotation to coincide with their maintenance schedule, which IMO, is way too long between rotations.


Yeah, that's by far not real-world - 10k
You can so easily tell by viewing tires , tread wear, even or uneven and depth of the tread block etc...

I think the belted tires of years ago warned against side to side swaps due to the belts shifting off center. Anyone who know the prices of good tires and doesn't like to skimp isn't be cheap IMO being somewhat anal about monitoring the tire wear and doing the rotate front to rear accordingly to get the life and performance bang for buck.
If you have to do a side to side swap for a reason, it's probably an alignment issue.


With especially European manufacturers with their extended drain intervals, that's when you rotate tires, if they even rotate them at all.

But, even the other makes are slowly going to longer oil drain intervals, which in turn, means longer tire rotation intervals.