Hi,
Sorry if this has been asked before but I searched and could not find a thread talking about this. The manual is no help either.
I would like to rotate the tires on our '06 Cooper S Convertible and can't find what the pattern is anywhere. Our car does not have run-flat or directional tires.

TIA.

 

You can do either a same side rotation or a cross pattern. The deciding factor would be if there is any wear that needs to be "evened out" on the tires.

 

Personally I don't rotate the tires on my MINI at all. Given the short lifespan of front tires on an S (I get about 9K on the fronts) it's just not worth the effort.

I've replaced my front tires three times total, and the rears not at all so far. I'm about to replace all four, so that will be ten tires used up in 38K miles, for about 15K miles average per set of four.

 

I rotate every 3,000-3,500 miles. I have 19k miles on a set that still look new and easily have half tread left (in reference to the wear bars), so I consider it reasonable to get 30k miles out of a set of tires.

Remember, this is really one of those YMMV situations. The poster above probably corners harder than I do more of the time and may not have as high a percentage of highway miles.

Note that with directional run flats (for example, the OEM Dunlop 9000 DSST) you can only rotate front to back/back to front, not from one side to the other.

I use a floor jack at the jacking point located on either side of the car. This will lift the whole side of the car and simplify switching the front and rear tires on that side.

 

My wife is the one that drives the car the most and she rarely pushes it.
I drive it on the weekends much harder.

I wanted to rotate them because I noticed the front left is wearing on the outside. Air pressure is fine, I check it frequently.

We have the Dunlop SP Sport 5000 DSST which are not directional or run-flat. I'm leaning towards the cross pattern.

We bought the car used with about 13k miles and have about 24k now. I think the tires on it are still OEM but I'm not sure. If that's the case I think we've done really well.

Thanks for

 

If the tires are not runflats they are not factory.

If you are noticing uneven wear on the fronts have the alignment checked soon. You may have some hidden damage or a mushroomed strut tower.

One real problem with only getting a pair of new tires is the uneven aging of the tires. The older they get the harder they are and the grip levels are vastly different. Not a safe situation.

 

DSST = runflat

 

These are not run-flats -- they're Dunlop Self Supporting Tires

 

So I'm going with the standard:
FL to RR
FR to RL
RR to FR
RL to FL

TIA