I rotated and balanced my runflats @ 3500 miles. I now have 11000 miles and have not done another rotation. I know I am overdue, but have this question:
Do I need to have the rotation done by a MINI shop, or can any tire shop and/or dealer do this? I wasn't sure if the MINI needed any special lifts, etc to do a rotation?
I am far from the nearest dealer, and want to use a local tire store, but don't know if that's a good idea.

 

any shop can do it. you can do it yourself too.

 

Is it necessary to balance the wheels when rotating tires?

 

RaiderZA: The Mini has special lifting points (if you look under the car you can't miss them). As long as the shop uses those points for lifting the car, any shop can rotate the tires. Personally, I'm kind of **** about having shops mounting/dissmounting wheels on our cars. I try to do the work myself when ever possible. We've had shops scratch our brand new rims, over torque lug nuts, strip threads on the lugs, etc.... If you make the relatively small investment of a hydraulic floor jack, and lug wrench, you can do the job yourself like we do.

valcom111t: It's not necessary to balance the wheels when rotating them front to rear. You should only need to rebalance wheels when:

1. You notice that you've lost some wheel weights (not a common problem)
2. You notice some vibration in your steering wheel (as your tires wear - like after say 15,000 miles - you might start to feel a vibration that warrents having them rebalanced)

Bascially, your wheels should stay balanced for the life of the tires.

 

nope. when my wife took her Honda in (years ago) to get an oil change,
the service guy told my wife she had to get her tires rotated and
rebalance for a total service charge of $99. the tires were recently
rotated and no vibrations.

she called me, i told her to let me talk to the service guy, yelled at him for
bs (basically he was trying to take advantage of her), got a free oil change.

 

You need to autocross more.

I usually change tires and rotate wheels at the same time.

As often as every 2 to 3 weeks. Had an autocross today, and again on Jan 7 and Jan 28.

A few years ago I'd have some track events or driving schools on top of that.

If you have a floor jack then you can easily and safely raise the MINI from the forward jack point and you can change both tires on one side.

If you use the MINI hand jack be very careful as it is unstable and can easily be tilted to one side if the ground is uneven.

 

Gotcha. Whenever I hear about someone getting their tires rotated by a shop, it usually includes a balancing too, and I never could see the point. I'm glad there isn't a point. Save me some money.

 

Just jack her up using the stock jack and jack points and rotate 'em around. If you can't get the whole car up at once, just rotate front to back, back to front.

mb