The purpose of rotating tires on a regular basis is so that the tires wear as evenly as possible, avoiding the quandry you describe.

Zip

 

I rotate every 3-4k this is also a time to deep clean the rims inside and out. Rotate front to back and use the one jack point.

 

no quandry EVZ...I do not rotate so I always have decent tires on the rear and when I need to buy tires it is only 2 at a time....I believe that some BMW dealers and a few MINI dealers recommend this as an optional philosophy

 

Okay, but I prefer to have my tires wear evenly. I may have to buy four tires at the same time, but I only have to lay out the money half as often. =o)

Zip

 

Besides making lug bolts easier to remove, it makes torquing more consistent, as the friction between the bolt and the threads on the hub will have some lubrication, not uneven friction caused by corrosion. But I recommend only a tiny amount. I put a dab on the bolt then rub with a cotton rag to spread evenly. The rag works to rub the ridge on the hub to get a film on it too. Just be neat. Been doing it on my street and race cars since the mid-60s!
What's average tire wear? My fronts (Pirelli Euforia run flats) are over half gone in 10K miles. But I live in the CA mountains and use them for amusement! I was about to rotate but I have a set of take-offs and am planning to try non-run flats for comparison.
J

 

Ok you guys... I was going to get adventurous and rotate my own tires as well, but I have an earlier build MCS and have heard horror stories about the jack points failing. I do have a stock MINI jack though since my build date is right after the failure discussed on MINI2. I went and checked my front jack points and the passenger side seems to be on solid but the driver's side is a little loose--not so loose that I can pull it off or anything, but enough that I'm not too excited about having my car supported by it. I do have free tire rotation b/c I bought the tires at Pep Boys (had a great deal on Kumho ASX tires, even better than Tire Rack at the time) but I really don't want Pep Boys messing around with my car if they don't have to. Ideas??

 

Anyone know how much it cost to have your tires rotated at the dealer. I am a college student and really dont have the means to rotate my tires here at school, and the Mini dealership is right down the raod so they a pretty covenant, so I prefer to use them for service

 

lowb35: You can easily remove the plastic jacking pucks. You pull the little plastic gromet out of the center and the fall right out. If it makes you feel better you can jack against that metal surface instead. The jacking pucks are just to make things a little easier for us. You could accomplish the same thing by removing them and using a little piece of 2x4 or something.

If one of yours is missing you can order a new one from Mini. They are very inexpensive ($5?). But if you have a loose one, just push in the center of it and the grommet should tighten it back into place. When they get loose its normally because you ran over something that hit them.

When you're rotating your tires, you only need to worry about the front jacking pucks. That's where you place your jack to jack up the whole side of the car. The rear jack pucks are just if you need to put the car on 4 jack stands, which you don't need to do when rotating your tires front to rear. It's not like you're getting under the car or anything dangerous when your rotating the tires. As long as you have a decent hydraulic jack you'll be fine and safe.

 

H.A.W.G. : They might do it for you for free. If not, it shouldn't cost more than $20.

 

CALL FIRST.
The dealers around here will charge up to 1/2 labor - $70 for a rotation.
As was said earlier, it should be $20, MAX. Any shop can do it.
As a starving college student, I'd suggest pulling out your jack and lug wrench and do it yourself.

 

I had my tires rotated at Goodyear for $15. It took them 5 minutes & my tires haven't fallen off yet

 

just another data point... I like another lister, I also rotate my tires when I change out the snows for summers, or if I put on track tires (on my other toy)... (or if you want to clean the insides of the wheels)

7K is nothing to worry about as long as that is not all canyon carving and track duty.

I also use a SMALL amount of anti-seize on the treads and the mating part of the wheel to the hub.

HTH.

 

Tire rotation? Doesn't that happen by itself when you drive?

 

^^ that's funny!

HAWG - you have the tools, you only need one jack and a lug wrench. You should however, get some anti-seize for the lug bolts and hub face (VERY thin coat, for reasons above), and borrow a torque wrench so the lugs are torqued evenly. This can, for some reason, keep brake rotors from warping. I don't mnow why, but I've had rotors "unwarp" when lugs were removed, then properly torqued (not in the mini, though).

Grease on a hub is fine, until you track it and carbonize the grease. Anti-seize isn't grease and withstands the higher temps, also doesn't creep as badly as grease. My hubs were actually anti-seized pretty heavily when new (from the dealer).

 

Ok, I'm being a wussy girl here. I've never changed the tires on my car before ever. I'm pretty mechanically inclined and have worked on cars doing all sorts of things that didn't require jacking up a car so I'm not totally useless, but I wanted to let you guys know in advance that I've always just *watched* others change tires and etc.

Though being a girl it's probably a good idea for me to learn how to do this at some point in my life b/c it's not like my husband and I are chained together 24/7 and I can't just expect that some *decent well meaning guy* will come to my rescue (in a good way) every time I have a flat tire on the interstate. And I'm purposely doing this while my hubby is away on an overnight trip so asking him to do this for me is not an option!!!

I have a 2 ton hydraulic floor jack and 2 jack stands. I loosened the lug nuts before jacking it up which was pretty hard b/c the people who installed my tires in the first place overtorqued them big time, which is why I'm wanting to do this myself in the first place, but I was still able to loosen them. I started jacking up the car and got the front almost an inch off the ground but the back was still on the ground. Do I keep going, how far can I keep going or should I use the jack that came with the car on the back jack point?

 

Keep going as long as the jack is securely on a good jacking point. You ALMOST had it high enough....

Rawhyde

 

I agree. Keep going. If you're having trouble getting the lug bolts loose, you should buy a bigger lug wrench for more leverage. They're cheap!

 

OK, thanks! I wussed out and used two jacks anyway. I was concerned b/c the hydraulic jack was leaning no matter what I did. I thought my carport was a flat surface but I guess it isn't. ANYWAY, I did get them off, I cleaned them, I swapped them, WOO HOO! My last question is, do I torque them before or after I lower the car? Reason I ask is because I thought it was after so I tightened the lug nuts (not hard but until they stopped with my little girly effort) but didn't torque them, and then when I lowered the car the back wheel groaned like crazy! I jacked it back up and was going to retry again to make sure the back tire was on even and the lugs equally tightened. Sorry if I'm so paranoid about this.

 

Torque when the tires *just* touch the ground. You can torque the rears while they're in the air (you DO have the e-brake firmly on, don't you?)

 

Ebrake on, opposite tires chocked. I torqued the rear in the air as suggested and it seems ok now.

Next challenge... the other side. One lug nut won't budge. Hopefully the 18" drive I just got at Sears will help things. But once I get that I should be ok. Thanks, all!!!

 

I found the rear wheels tend to return to the ground out of place (sort of) due to the camber (or caster whatever). Having jacked one side up and down first and then the other side. When lowering the last side the opposite rear tire scoots out a little. Maybe that's the groan you hear. I do mine all on gravel without having any concern about losing the MINI off the jack or jack stands when I use them. Concrete would be nice, even if slightly unlevel.

 

Done! WOO HOO! Don't ask how long it took though; totally embarrassing. But at least I did it!

Glad I did this too for another reason... I found a nail in one of the tires! Guess it would be a good thing to get *that* taken care of before tomorrow's rally, esp. as I don't have run flats.

Thanks everybody!

 

Good job, lowb. I've found foreign objects in my tires MANY times while doing rotations. Much nicer to get it taken care of when it's not late, dark and raining in the middle of nowhere.

 

I have one more question for you guys. First, I did get the tire fixed and put it back on the car. I made sure all the lug nuts were torqued properly (88.5 ft lbs according to the manual), drove maybe 5-10 min to get gas, and at the gas station checked torque again. Everything was great - drove maybe 30 additional miles with a mix of interstate and local driving with no problems. No shimmy, no noises, I even had everything turned off so that I could hear the car (esp. after the grunt noises I heard when dealing with the rear wheels).

On Saturday evening I went out to run a short errand and the tire pressure indicator came on. Stopped at a gas station, checked tires with a tire gauge, and the fixed tire (now on the front passenger side) apparently wasn't totally fixed as it had gone from 40 PSI to 30. Since Pep Boys (where I bought the tires and road hazard warranty in the first place) was still open for another 20 min. and it was just across the street from where I checked the tires, I went there to get it checked out again since I didn't have time to bring the car home, take the tire off myself and bring it in for them to refix before they closed. Took the hub cover off first for obvious reasons, lol. Well, they *said* that the plug wasn't leaking but they replaced the valve stem *just in case.* They also argued with me over tire inflation (I keep them at 40 PSI, they insisted on 33,) but they compromised at 35. When I got it home, I loosened the lug nuts which were unevenly tightened and all overtorqued, retorqued them properly to 88.5 ft lb, inflated the tire to 40 PSI, and rechecked the torque and inflation of the rest of the tires JIC while I was at it. Total driving was maybe 2 miles.

I didn't drive the car yesterday but did check tire inflation and it was ok. Today on the way to work I noticed the grunt noise from the rear was back whenever I accelerated from a stop. I didn't drove in my usual *spirited* fashion either - this was just a gentle acceleration fom a stop in rush hour city traffic.

BTW, Pep Boys didn't put the car on a lift when taking off the front passenger tire but used a jack. The noise is definitely coming from the rear though. Is this something to worry about or is this likely due to the car being jacked up again and not coming down in its normal negative camber position?

 

Actually, proper inflation is determined by the load. There is a chart on the inside of the drivers door with the proper inflation of the tires and that is the number that should be used. On the 2006 MCS it is 35psi and I suspect that it is the same for your car. Basically, you are over inflating your tires.

The grunt might be a brake caliper not letting free when you drop the E-brake.