Yesterday I had the 10k service done and they didn't rotate the tires even though the fronts were worn on the outside edge. I asked the service gal why they didn't rotate the tires (16&quot and her response surprised me. Se said it's because of the camber setting of the fronts are diferent than the rears and if they rotated them it would cause wear problems. I would be interested to hear what others have to say about this including anyone who has gone ahead and rotated their tries and what results were.

Thanks,

Brad B.

 

BS! I had my tires rotated and balanced at the 10K mile service. I had to pay for it since tire rotation and balancing are not included in the free scheduled maintenance package.

I have a '02 Cooper CVT with standard suspension, 15" tires with 8-spoke silver rims.

 

I have an 02/02 build MINI Cooper 5-speed and I rotate the tires about
every 5000 miles.

The front tires were wearing faster than the back tires and I wanted
them to wear out at about the same time so I can buy 4 new tires, and
have a choice of brands when I do.

I also have snow and ice tires for the winter mounted on steel rims,
and I rotate them also.

I think rotation is a good idea, the tire manufacturers also thing
it is a good idea. (Just check out bridgestone, Michelein and Pirelli web sites)

But the car manufacturers don't recommend it.

Huh, guess who would have to pay to do the rotation?

 

It is not only good to rotate your tires, It is also dumb not to.
If you where to never rotate your tires, especially on a fwd car, you would be buying
2 tires all the time. On a fwd car front tires not only plants the power from your engine to the ground but it also works double when you are turning.
By the time the 1st. service comes around the front tires are more than ready to be rotated.
I see alot of Minis coming in that need rotating and some owners buy a rotation and some do not.
For the $$ it is the best way to get the most mileage out of the tires.
Also balancing them is important to while doing a rotation, which my dealership does automatically when a customer buys a rotation..


_________________
Making a living working on Minis.
Darren

 

Could I rotate my own tires? Why or why not? What about balancing?

In either case, what is a fair price for rotating/balancing, how often should it be done, and what should I expect of a good shop in a rotation/balance?

Thanks!

 

my dealer did my rotation at 10K miles for $37.50. balancing won't be a problem when you rotate ... i believe you only need to balance if you actually change the tire for a rim. if i had an alligator jack, i probably would've done it myself .. or not

 

Any advice on tires for the MC? I was thinking another brand of runflats, as I hate to change tires on smaller vehicles.

In the Bronco I keep a nice jack in the back, now that makes things easier.

 

>>Could I rotate my own tires? Why or why not? What about balancing?
>>
>>In either case, what is a fair price for rotating/balancing, how often should it be done, and what should I expect of a good shop in a rotation/balance?
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>>

Sure, you could rotate your tires yourself. I've done it before on other cars but not on my Mini - haven't had it long enough to need it, especially since the previous owner already had them rotated twice in 8200 miles. I have an '02 Mini with runflats and thus no jack. But assuming I had the right kind of jack (whatever Mini specifies, if anything), 4 jack stands, and that it works the way it does on other cars, it's fairly simple, just a little time-consuming. All you do is look in the Mini owner's manual (or the tire instructions if you no longer have OEM tires) for the rotation pattern, take the tires off (forgive me if this is insulting, but... assuming you know the basics of how to change a tire) and swap them around. Unless you have balancing equipment at home (who does?) you won't be able to balance them yourself, but you'll be able to rotate them, for free. Of course if you have a problem with one of your tires later, you may have to prove that you rotated them for the warranty to cover them, so it may still be best to pay a dealer or tire store to do it for you. But if you do it yourself - good luck, and have fun - there's a certain feeling of accomplishment you get from doing maintenance on such a cool car all by yourself.

 

>>>>Could I rotate my own tires? Why or why not? What about balancing?
>>>>
>>>>In either case, what is a fair price for rotating/balancing, how often should it be done, and what should I expect of a good shop in a rotation/balance?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks!

>>Sure, you could rotate your tires yourself. I've done it before on other cars but not on my Mini - haven't had it long enough to need it, especially since the previous owner already had them rotated twice in 8200 miles. I have an '02 Mini with runflats and thus no jack. But assuming I had the right kind of jack (whatever Mini specifies, if anything), 4 jack stands, and that it works the way it does on other cars, it's fairly simple, just a little time-consuming. All you do is look in the Mini owner's manual (or the tire instructions if you no longer have OEM tires) for the rotation pattern, take the tires off (forgive me if this is insulting, but... assuming you know the basics of how to change a tire) and swap them around. Unless you have balancing equipment at home (who does?) you won't be able to balance them yourself, but you'll be able to rotate them, for free. Of course if you have a problem with one of your tires later, you may have to prove that you rotated them for the warranty to cover them, so it may still be best to pay a dealer or tire store to do it for you. But if you do it yourself - good luck, and have fun - there's a certain feeling of accomplishment you get from doing maintenance on such a cool car all by yourself.

Yes you can rotate your own tires. My MCS came with a jack in the rear left boot. I took it out, jacked up the car easily and removed all of the wheels. So you can definitely and easily rotate your tires. Just write down when you did it and what was the mileage to document the service was done. Since you might lack a spare you can put the car up on jacks at least for the front or rears then rotate the tires over. Usually rotations each 5000 miles is fine.

I have a spare set of wheels so I use one of the spare wheels (the stock S-lites) to help with the rotation. Just takes a few minutes for each wheel change. Plus I use the opportunity to inspect and clean the wheel wells and suspension parts and then I clean each wheel and check for any problems. A clean MINI is a happy MINI!

Additionally if you are a costco member you can have costco do the entire four wheel rotation done free every 5000 miles as a service and usually only the front two tires need the balancing (which if you didn't buy the tires from costco-you can have done for a low fee).

 

OK. I realize that a 27-year-old man should know this already, but I'm so new to actually CARING about my car and wanting to do things myself.....

What exactly is involved in balancing?

(BTW: Thanks for the rotation info....)

 

What a load of B.S. Rotate your tires every 5k miles so that they'll wear evenly. Its an hour job if you combine it with a thorough fore and behind washing of each rim. Worth the effort as they'll look great afterwards. No rotating because of different camber / caster, horsefeathers!

 

Rotate, rotate, rotate!

I waited too long and rotated at 12.5 k miles, should've done it at 5k.
The camber story is BS. The wear at the front is much more pronounced than at the rear.

You can rotate yourself on the MINI, quite easily: when you jack up the car at the front jack point, the entire side of the car moves up and you can take both wheels on one side off and swap. You should only swap front - rear, NOT diagonally!!!!!

Balancing the tires at time of rotation is a good idea, but you cannot do that yourself, you should have that done at a shop, and then might as well have them do the rotation!

 

>>. You should only swap front - rear, NOT diagonally!!!!!

Do you know something the tire manufacturers don't?

From Bridgestone:


And Pirelli: when the front and rear are different size. (Does not apply to my MINI)



>>Balancing the tires at time of rotation is a good idea,

Why do I need to rebalance the tires when I rotate them?

 

They gave you a bunch of BS. It is a very good idea to keep your tires as even as you can, and the fronts will wear much faster than the backs.

 

>>...Se said it's because of the camber setting of the fronts are diferent than the >>rears and if they rotated them it would cause wear problems. ...

Actually, it's because the camber settings are different in the front and back tires that you are supposed to rotate the tires. In addition, to some of the previously mentioned reasons, since most cars don't have camber settings of exactly 0degrees either by design or by daily wear and tear. each of the tires will have slightly different wear patterns. by rotating your tires you also rotate the wear pattern that each tire is exposed to and thus use more of each tire. maybe things are radically different with the MINI. but, that's the way that I've treated my tires for the past 15 years...

 

FYI : For those of you that are going to rotate your tires, You can do it with the lug wrench in the car or you could go and buy a 17mm socket and use a rachet. It makesgetting your lugs off a little easier.
Some tires will wear odd and start to feather. feathering is hard to describe but if
you run your hand along the edge of your tire and feel each tread block sticking up a little more on one side than the other then you need to balance them. The world want come to a end if you don't balance them, it is just a way of getting your wheels and tires perfectly balanced after they have worn with miles.

 

As far as I know, BMW has NEVER recommended rotating tires in any of their cars. For those that argue BMW is just trying to save cost due to the included maintenance, well, they did not recommend rotating tires back in the days when they did not include free maintenance. Finally, even an oil service require the wheels to be taken off to inspect the calipers, pads, and hoses. They are not saving the tech much time by not rotating.

Therefore, I believe that it is just "the way they do things". This is their first FWD car after all, and old habits are hard to change.

 

>>


So if I were to attempt to rotate this way ^^^ at home...how on EARTH would I accomplish that in a reasonable amount of time? I have no spare, and I'm thinking that putting all four corners on stands would be both difficult and dangerous...

The only way to do it that I can see is:

1) Jack up left side. 2) Switch front to rear. 3) Lower left side.
4) Jack up right side. 5) Switch front to rear. 6) Lower right rear.
7) Jack up front. 8 ) Switch left to right. 9) Lower front.
10) Jack up rear. 11) Switch left to right. 12) Lower rear.

Is that right? Sorry...but this is the first car I've ever owned that I have desired to do my own maintenance, so I have lots of questions, and I'm just sort of clueless in general...


_________________

 

I rotated my runflats at 3k mi. I have a jack, if thats what MINI calls it stowed in my 12/02 build Mini, but I also use a hydralic jack under the lift points for extra piece of mind. On balancing, have the balance CHECKED first, before mounting the tire in the new position. Sometimes, treadwear will throw your balance off, and a 1/16 oz difference will raise havoc at 60+ mph.

 

for those of you who don't rotate you tires
go to MINI talk and seea tale of two perelli's

 

with regards to no diagonal rotation.

it depends on which tires you have on the MINI, mine came with the Dunlop SP9000, which is an asymetric tire, meaning you can't swap diagonally as the tread would be rotating the wrong way. the only way to rotate them diagonally would be to take them off the rims and have them remounted the other direction.

so for me i just rotate front to back. it depends on whether your tires are uni-directional.

 

I do mine at every 5K. Discount Tire stores will do it for free for ya! No purchase required. I can do my own as well since I have a jack stand I can keep one side of the car in the air as I swap 'em.

 

I rotated my own tires at 5,000 miles and plan on doing it every 5,000 miles hereafter. I rotated the tires front to rear, no cress-cross as it is my understanding that you are never to change the direction of rotation on a radial tire. I used a floor jack to lift one side at a time, a 17mm socket with a long handled ratchet and then torque the lug bolts to 75 foot pounds with my trusty torque wrench (all tools are Snap-On, simply the best!). If I didn’t rotate, I would plan on going through between 3 and 4 front tires to every set of rears as the front tires were showing considerable wear at 5K and the rears still looked relatively new. Don’t forget to check air pressures when finished.

 

i plan to rotate mine about every 6k miles, since that's what i'm used to doing on my nissan p/u. in addition, i got tires from costco, which recommends and will do for free rotating and balancing every 6k. i know when they do it, on the diagram on the receipt they actually draw arrows to show which way they'll rotate. there's always some diagonal arrows, and the direction of rotation is always the same. i'm gonna have to check the manual to see if my oem goodyear eagle nct5 16" performance runflats are unidirectional or not.

my question is...for those with costco membership, do you know if just being a member allows us to do rotation for free? i thought we had to actually buy tires from them to get the free deal? and balancing i guess costs a bit out of pocket?

thanks for any info on this.

 

>> On balancing, have the balance CHECKED first, before mounting the tire in the new position. Sometimes, treadwear will throw your balance off, and a 1/16 oz difference will raise havoc at 60+ mph.

Seriously? Should I be afraid, if I'm rotating at home?