I drive a lot of miles---5,000 miles a month. I've been through a lot of tires. My Falken Ziex 512's were inexpensive tires--but didn't last long. My front's always worn down faster. Buying tires in sets of 4 are cheaper than sets of 2's. Even if you only plan to replace two at a time, it's better to buy 4 and have 2 extras for the next change.

Before my current setup, I rotated my tires because my fronts wore out so fast. Course autocrossing every couple of months didn't help the wear at all, lol.

My current tires are Nitto Neo Gens and I've put 25,000 miles on them, and wear has been even all the way around.

What's changed are the adjustable camber plates (Cross Coilovers) and an alignment (I have adjustable endlinks all the way around). Before that, I was going through tires much too fast. It's pretty cool to be getting decent tire wear on these tires--I'll definitely be getting another set to replace them!

Richard

 

also applies to FWD. reason being that a bald rear tire will cause the car to over steer vs a bald front tires that will cause the car to under steer. most people can control under steer better than over steer. most people will jump off the gas or hit the brakes in an over steer situation which is the wrong thing to do 99% of the time.

 

I'm at 40k on the original run flats (Bridgestone, IIRC) and haven't rotated tires yet. The fronts are definitely seeing more wear than the rear, but it's been pretty even across the tires.

 

my front tires were super bald when I rotated mine, stupid hard corners =]

 

I should rotate them more than I do, but maybe now that I'm finally getting my own, sizable garage, I can be bothered to do it!

 

I never rotate tires. I replace the fronts about every 9-10k miles, putting new ones on back, old ones front. Not that I recommend this strategy, I just don't want to bother with rotation.

At the moment I want to get rid of the fronts. I prefer the original Dunlop RFs (back) to Conti RFs (front). I suspect what I learned is not to mix tire models when you have DSC. Which is an argument for rotation :-)

 

I rotate my 2003 MCS's tires every 5-7K miles, have almost 80K miles on the odo, and am on the third set of runflats. Yeah, I'm one of the few who love the runflats, but that's because I do a lot of solo trips across the country and feel safer running them.

 

My tires always rotate when I drive they rotate around.

All kidding aside normally I rotate my tires at 5000 miles but I am waiting to do that until I hear from my SA to meet with the factory rep about the continued heat issue in the passenger footwell after the service bulletin was performed.

 

I have to agree. I think every car I've ever owned that came with runflats all received the same thing within the first week I owned them.... That being, new non-runflats.

However, I purposely haven't replaced the tires on my '08 with non-runflats because I tend to make a fair amount of long distance trips.

I figure the runflats may not be as good but they make me feel better on the highway. (not to mention they take a trashing on the track)

Mark

 

Shade tree. Rope. Come-along.

 

I believe that having the best tread on the rear is good if you are planning to text message while driving. Otherwise, since the front wheels steer and pull, better tread there gives you a car with more capability . . . you'll get oversteer only in rare conditions, such as hard cornering during a tropical storm (which you may not notice if you are text messaging while driving). Of course, I avoid the problem by rotating my tires every 5000 miles, or whenever they are off for other reasons. The tread on my rear tires is less than that on the front for 2500 miles, and more than on the front for 2500 miles . . . .

 

With my tires, I am rotating every 3,000 miles to make sure they wear as evenly as possible. I purchased the tires at America's Tire which provides free rotations for the life of the tires. I highly recommend this as rotating the tires is the only way to get the most sustained performance out of the tires (and when all you have to do is drop the car off for 15 minutes, who cares...).

 

Sounds like you have more of a driving problem then tire problem. You shouldn't be going through tires that fast if you are a smooth driver. Have you taken any drivers training or track days with an instructor?

Or maybe you need some suspension work, like camber plates. They will aid in getting the car to rotate and take a lot of the wear and tear off of the front tires allowing the rears to do more work.

 

I guess that's okay if you're confident in their competence, you know it's the same tech or techs doing the rotation each time, and you trust them to care enough to treat your wheels with TLC and get the torque right every time. Seems like the uber-frequent, sight-unseen rotations unnecessarily increases the risk of an under- or over-torque of a lug bolt somewhere along the line.

I'll bet when your vendor offered free rotations they weren't anticipating that you'd be showing up on their doorstep every 3K.

 

Over/under inflation can cause odd wear pattern (center or edges) and alignment problems can really eat the tires.

Now we have to align the rear as well as the front ends.

 

$5 jackstand?

 

Oh. They said 'backyard', not 'shade tree'. My bad.

 

I didn't know there was a difference...

I figure in each backyard, there's a shade tree.

Mark

 

Or a hastily tacked-together stack of scrap 2x4s, for the junk-pile mechanic.

 

Another reason for rotating vs. not rotating is so you will buy a set of 4 tires at the same time. This way you have a matching set instead of possibly having different brands front and rear since different tires have different grip levels and differing wet weather traction. Doing this just takes one more variable out of the equation. Also, sometimes tires get discontinued and aren't able to find 2 tires to match your old ones even if you try.

 

I'm sure they didn't. But that's what it takes to ensure that the car's balance does not get as compromised as it would if they were left alone.

 

That's a very good point. One of my shops does almost all the Acura bodywork in town....point is, most of the cars we work on are 2006 and up.

Many, many times we'll have to replace a tire from an accident and it's discontinued. You'd think that they wouldn't change tires so fast considering that a manufacturer buys the exact same size and brand for a particular model.

Tire manufacturers remind me of computer companies, they're always upgrading their version...

 

Do we need an alighment when we rotate tires on a FWD car?

 

I'd check alignment prior to each set of tires, unless somthing had taken the car out of alignment prematurley - usually impact.

Alex

 

I'm with Alex on that too.... unless there is something visually out of the ordinary, I wouldn't do an alignment.

However, if I put on a new set of tires, it's worth 45 bucks to me to ensure I'm not starting a brand new set of tires off in a bad wear pattern.

Mark