What is the "official" rule for rotating the tires. Is it back tires to front and the front tires to the opposite side in back?

 

Depends on the tire, I have high performance tires so they only rotate in one direction. Thus, I can only rotate front to back. Look at your tire, does it have an arrow and say "rotation"? If so, you can only rotate front to back (and vice versa)

 

JohnW94,

I checked that before posting. I just have the typical run-flats that came with the car.

 

Hmm well I am curious as to what others will say. Because I have never had run-flats. Sorry I wasn't able to answer your question.

 

find out if you have "directional" or non-directional tires. directional tires can be rotated only front to back, same side. non-directional can be rotated front to back and side to side. this is what I was told by a Firestone tire dealer.

 

The official MINI rule is not to rotate at all...

I rotate front to back for my summer and winter sets. The summer run-flat all seasons could be criss-crossed but I don't bother. My winter set must be rotated only front-to-back.

I do the front to back for all my tires because it's easy to lift the entire side of the car from one jack point. I have even tread wear after 5,000km rotations so far with 45,000km on the odometer.

 

I have driven the Ortega Hwy. to work almost 100 miles a day for the past 8 months and have racked up 12K miles since buying my '11 MCS in December. Bought it as my dd so it's doing the job. The section of the Ortega I take is nearly 29 miles of twisty canyon road so the tires get a decent workout twice a day, even with the slowpokes that frequent that road. The rest is straight highway to work. Early this month I noticed the front treads were about down to the wear bars and the rears less than halfway there. I was shocked that after only 11K miles, the runflats were almost history and that there was such a huge difference in front to rear wear ratio. My wife got over twice that on her Vette's runflats. I rotated front to rear and will buy a new set of non-runflats for the MCS when the rears make me feel uncomfortable (which will be very soon).

 

That is exactly what I do as well. Much easier than crisscrossing when you only have one jack.

 

Swapping them diagonally is only used for non-radial tires and who runs those? Aways a simple front to back keeping the tires on the same side of the car.

That said, I'm inclined to not swap and just change out the fronts more often. That leaves the rears scuffed in to the rear suspension settings. Otherwise, I have to drive more carefully for a 100+ miles before the tires get properly worn in to their new positions. Until then, the car feels more "skitish".

Another FYI: It seems that some tire dealers will not put new tires on the front when you're only buying two. They insist on putting the new tires on the rear. Lawyer crap in my opinion. Their excuse is that it's been "proved" that putting the newer tires on the rear helps maintain stability in the rain when sudden turns are made.

I'm sure that in certain circumstances, this may be true to a degree, but hell, here in California, in the middle of summer? And with a car that eats fronts? My protestations were of no avail at America's Tire. So, when I got home, I had to swap them front to back myself. What a pain.

Moral: If you're only getting two tires and you want them on the front, check with the shops first to see if they'll do this. May save you some hassle.

 

you can rotate radials front to back and across as long as they are not "directional" tires. the fact that they are radial makes no difference.

 

That's the rotation pattern for non-directional tires on rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive vehicles. For front-wheel drive vehicles, it's front tires to the rear and then rear tires to the opposite side on the front:



Above image from a NHTSA Tire Safety Brochure.

As stated already, it makes no difference if they're radial tires.

 

My 07 manual specifically says to not rotate them side to side "The direction in which the tires rotate should be kept the same." But then again, my 08 manual says to not roatate them at all.

 

Wow, I'm totally confused...rotate, don't rotate, back to back, side to side. What's a newbie like me to do.

 

Keep it simple and rotate your front tires to the back, keeping them on the same side. Save the crisscrossing stuff for nondirectional tires or at the track.

 

As long as you don't run directional tires the "wrong" direction, the consequences aren't particularly dire no matter what you do (or don't do).

If you don't rotate at all, it just means that the fronts will wear out faster than the rears. Big deal - toss the front tires, move the rears to the front, put the new tires on the rear and repeat the process all over again.

 

.....exactly