I am rotating my tires on the Countryman this weekend. It has the stock Perelli run flat tires on it. Do I just rotate right front to right rear and right rear to right front and same on left side. Or, is it better to criss cross tires.

Tnx

 

You are correct with the first statement -

rotate right front to right rear and right rear to right front and same on left side

If you do some searching on NAM, there are many long threads on this subject (yours might get long as well). Some of them indicate that MINI does not recommend rotating the tires at all. Don't know if it's true, but go figure..

 

I rotate my tires every 5k miles when I do my oil change. The way it is supposed to be done, you're supposed to rotate the two front wheels straight back and the back wheels rotate diagonally to the front.

 

From the manual..

 

Ahh, you must go by the 15k mile oil changes, 100k mile fuel filter change, and others too lol

 

Rotating same side or crossing back to front depends entirely upon the tires you have. Directional tires, indicated by an arrow on the side of the tire, usually in the design stay on the same side. Bi-direction tire will have an arrow with the pointy thing on both ends may be crossed back to front and front straight back.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=43

 

LOL, good point. I rotate and change the oil every 5k miles. Fly n Brick makes a good point, depends on the tires. The tires on my Mustang have a directional arrow, so I've gotten into the habit of rotating front to back, back to front on both my autos..

 

exactly what i do with my summer tires...

see michelin web site for the rotation pattern

this does assume you do not have "directional" tires ... my winter tires are directional so they get the straight front to back - back to front swap

 

I just rotate my tires on the same side, front to back, only because it is easier to just jack up one side at a time.

 

This is the method to my madness as to when to rotate , I take the tire wear ratings and times 1.5. because the low the wear rating the more you need to rotate.


Example, I'm currently running S-04's with a 280 wear rating so I rotate every 4200 miles

 

Exactly it all depends also on the AWD, FWD, and RWD conditions. It just depends but I'm lowered too so tires get a little more stress on turns:-).

 

In the mini manual it says not to rotate the tires. I've never seen any manufacture suggest that.

 

Guess it depends on the manual. Mine says to rotate them, see my post number 4 above.

 

The language has changed throughout the years. iirc, my 2008 manual also says MINI does not recommend rotating the tires.

 

Well, now that all of us have given the OP such solid advice, I wonder how the rotation went. Or, did he read all this and scream out loud?

 

On my '12 MCS with 16" Conti AS runflats, I just rotated front to back and after 30,000 miles, they were not even half worn. I changed them out anyway, because, I could not stand the ride, noise, and handling. I bought some Michelen AS3's and the improvement in all aspects is dramatic. And, no loss in on-center steering feel.

 

I got so totally confused by the conflicting suggestions that I just rotated front to back and back to front only because I could jack up the whole side of car at one time. I have to assume this method was better than not rotating at all.

 

I think this subject boils down to:
- North Americans believe in rotating tires.
- Europeans believe in not rotating tires.

The Mini is a European car, so it's no surprise they do not encourage rotation.

And while you might think the laws of gravity and physics would be the same in both continents, that is absolutely no reason why what "everybody knows" should be the same in both places. Just because "everybody knows" something, it doesn't mean it's true.

After all, all the experts on both continents have never done it the other way, so how do they know their way is better?

 

K2, did you open the TireRack link I posted? It has PICTURES.