I am on this forum reading these and trying to absorb all I can about rotation and alignment. I am due for a rotation for my 2008 Mini Cooper (base not a S) at 17200 miles. As I reading the posts, some say to criss-cross, front to back, side to side, and it seems to varies. I refused to get my Cooper rotate at the dealership they charge an arm and a leg! I do try my best to maintain my tires by monitoring the tire pressure.

My question is what is the exact proper way to get a MINI tires rotate without from what I read cupping or awkward drives? Any suggestion?

 

I rotate mine every 5,000 miles. I just use front to back same side rotation. My Dunlops have directional arrows so I can't really X them at all. Even if they didn't have the arrows I don't think I would ever run a radial ply tire other then the direction it was put on when new.

I do my own and wash the inside of the wheels while they are off the car. I do have a torque wrench and my 2009 JCW calls for 103 ft. pounds of torque. I also use never-sieze on the studs. I bought a tire hanger off E-Bay and it makes it very easy to line up the stud bolts when putting the wheels back on the car. Just do a search on E-Bay for tire hangers to find one.

It is easy to do and just be sure to check the torque on your wheels after driving the car a few miles. I'm sure they will be fine but it is better to be safe then sorry.

I only have a little over 11,000 miles but my tires look brand spanking new.
I would think a 2008 would have the same torque specs as my 2009 but check with someone that knows to be sure.

Ronnie948

 

Just my opinion and I am sure to catch flak for this...but.

1) It has always been the golden rule to only criss cross biased ply tires and not steel belted radials. And I dont think they even make biased ply tires for autos any more.

2) If you are hard pressed to rotate your tires, then go back to front and it would have to be done regularly. I mean like regularly, like every 2K miles.

There is a drastic difference between the front and back wheel cambers. If you allow too much time between rotations, your contact patch on the front drive tires will not be properly squared to the road and the irregular tread blocks will create excessive heat and noise and vibration until they wear in. And how long that takes depends on the tires compound and tread design.

In summary, rotating them is a waste of time and money......My 2 cents.

Now let the onslaught of rebuttles begin.

 

Thank you Ronnie for the very thorough details!

As much I would like to be hands on with my car, since I am a girl I have very little upper body strength! I know it's not a excuse but it does make it much more difficult. I admit that that much

Right now I am still running stock tires on my tires (Continental) and it's only the front tires the bearing on the outer rim is wearing out a bit. Should I wait or just rotate and have my alignment soon?

 

Get over your excuses and just do it! It's not that hard. And guess what, upper body strenght is more a function of what you do than the sex you are. Just start doing the work, and the money you save will be it's own reward!

Matt

 

LOL at Gray Raven I remember coming across your post on a few read. If I remember correctly you said to not rotate tires in general? Now I am confused since I just read your post.

I live in Los Angeles and often head down to the heart of LA for work. Often stuck in traffic no matter what side street or new route I find. Would this make an difference in my rotation? Since I have to hit my brakes so often.

 

what makes a difference is do you drive mostly straight and flat (like freeways) without cornering agressively, or do you really hit the corners hard. If the latter, the outer front tire will wear the fastest. If it's the former, the inner rear will wear the fastest.

Watch you pressures, and just go front to back every 3 months or 6 months and you'll be fine.

Matt

 

I agree with you Dr. Obnxs I do want to be able to change my own oil too. I always get discourage by the amount of tool I have to buy. It is true I don't use my upper body strength much.

 

The freeway I hit constantly have pothole despite them fixing it many time and I usually would try to avoid the pothole to keep my driving as flat as possible. I would believe it's the latter especially off the exit near my home, they curve dramatically which requires me to slow down to at least 30mph.

I still constantly forget how fast this car go even though it's just a base model.

 

MiniLes,

If you are going to rotate your tires, with modern tires, you are probably limited to rotating them front to back on the same side. But that is going to be driven more by the tire as opposed to the type of vehicle (e.g. if they are unidirectional).

If you are going to rotate your tires, the more often the better. The whole idea of doing the rotation is to even out the wear that is occuring on the tires. If you wait too long in between rotations, you'll end up with one pair (fronts or back) having a lot more tread than the other pair. In my case, with rotations every 5k miles, I've never had more than a 1/32 difference in tread depth (usually I cannot even distinguish the difference).

 

If they are not directional tires then rotation should be cross to the drive axle, the other tires will go straight back. The reason for this is so that every tire sees every wheel position.

I.e.
RR -> LF
LR -> RF
RF -> RR
LF -> LR

Rotations should be done between 5k and 7.5k miles.

Raven, I see tires wore out at 1/2 their mileage because people dont rotate them, trust me, it is worth the effort...and every 2k miles is overkill.

 

Its been our expeirnce that rotation should be done more often in the 1st few thousand miles. Tires when new are fairly soft, and wear the qickest. After 10-12k you've had enough heat cycles that you can slow your rotation schedule down, the tire is begining to wear less quickly.

I personally do every 3k for the 1st 12k. I'll pull my schedule back to every 5-7k after that. Its been my experince that this keeps directionals as quiet as possible.

I'm rather fanatical about it, my frequency may be considered excessive.

I'm also the guy using his tread depth gage constantly to monitor wear patterns due to inflation, rotation, and alignment - using these factors to adjust my schdule or pressures more than pre-determined plans.

Alex

 

Alex I agree early rotation is especially important. You can also use a good pyrometer to get a sense for wear though for a street car that would be serious overkill.

Looks like I am going to get to really test my blizzaks before the day is over. Hoping the aero kit doesn't turn into a plow

 

Great info from Alex...

This may be a given, but remember to properly torque the lug bolts! and check them occasionally.

ken

 

+1

I quit rotating tires decades ago. I've seen NO difference in longevity. Keeping them properly inflated, balanced and aligned is all I've needed to do to achieve outstanding mileage and even wear.

My M Coupe has staggered tires and as such they can't be rotated even if a fanatic wanted to. Even on that car I achieved over 30k miles on the stock Conti's, and they could still have gone a fair bit longer. I wound up ditching them for PS2s because they'd become noisy late in life.

Tire rotation was important with bias ply tires. But they've been virtually non-existent since the Nixon era.

 

Front to back, same side, every 4K miles or so, N/A to the wintertime setup.

I'm in full agreement with Dr. O -- if I never rotated I'm certain I'd be stuck with front tires that had excessive outside wear and rear tires with excessive inside wear. Probably more of a factor with high performance, fair weather tires. I don't see near as much of the wear patterns with my winter tires, but that is likely due to a bunch of reasons (e.g., winter surfaces, more conservative driving, etc.).

 

FWD Mini - I don't rotate.
RWD minivan - I rotate.

 

Those of you who don't rotate, I'm curious...

1. When you have to replace tires, do your replace two or four?

2. If you only replace two, do you buy the same brand/model as the remaining two tires or do you mix and match?

3. If you replace all four, is it because all four actually need replacing or is it to keep all tires matching (and implied in this is that you are replacing some tires that ostensibly have life left on them)?

TIA!

 

When the fronts are worn to the bars, I buy two new tires. The partially worn rears get promoted to the front and the new ones are installed at the rear.

I violated my rotation rule to ditch all four of the original runflats when the front RFs needed to be replaced.

You should always use the same brand/model at all 4 corners, imo.

 

My Mini Clubman Owners Manual (page 104) states: "The manufacturer of your MINI recommends that you do not swap the front wheels and the rear wheels as this may impair the handling of your MINI."

I've been a big believer in rotating tires to improve wear patterns and tread life. I'm looking for some rationale why MINI apparently says we shouldn't rotate the tires. Or am I misinterpreting this?

 

Modern tires have a big impact on every facet of your cars performance. As performance requirements have gone up and cost and fuel economy has become more important, the compromises to tire design have increased. Small variations in a tires tolerances or wear can have a big effect on the vehicle. This is especially true on small light wheels with stiff suspensions and low profile tires are especially sensitive to this. While I don't know for sure, a couple things that COULD account for this issue are:

1. The front and rear tires are could actually have unique internal constructions on the Clubman. This could be done to address a ride, handling, or NVH issue. Generally speaking, OEM tires are all unique anyway, even if they look the same or have the same name. A Porsche PS2 is not the same as a Corvette PS2, even if they are the same size.

2. The front and rear tires could have different tolerance requirements. For example, on most cars, the front suspension is more sensitive to tire balance issues. Tire manufacturers actually throw out (or more likely sell to the aftermarket) a huge number of tires because they don't meet the OEM's specs for things like balance or roundness. The tighter the specs, the more scrap the tire maker has, the more they charge the OE. Another key spec is conicity, or how close the tires are to a "perfect cylinder." This affects how well a car tracks straight ahead. BMW could have tighter specs for the front tires to avoid vibration or steering problems, but more open specs in the rear to save a bit of money.

3. The car could wear the tires in a way that a set of worn fronts won't work in the rear. All cars from the factory with some understeer dialed in for safety. Say at 5000 miles the fronts have worn 25% and the rears have worn 5%. If you swap then, then you've now put worn tires on the rear, which could shift the balance of the car to oversteer in certain situations. Note that I'm not taking about US/OS on a racetrack situation, more in terms of emergency handling and lane change maneuvers.

I don't have first hand knowledge of the Mini, but I have done a lot of tire development and ride/handling/NVH testing for other OEM's.

 

This is what I do as well. Except I don't use anti-sieze. A properly torqued wheel stud will be easy enough to remove without it, and the addition of a lubricant to ANY threaded fastner can change the torque reading by 50% or more. So your 103ftlbs actually loads the stud as if you applied a much higher torque.

With the designed in safety, it's not a really a big deal if you properly torque the bolts each time. But using an impact wrench will significantly over load load the bolts, which will cause them to stretch and fail over time.

Here's some more discussion about it . . .

http://www.mechanicsupport.com/articleTorqueWrench.html

 

To the OP's question, There is no 100% RIGHT way to rotate tires. The goal is to maintain even tire wear to maximize the life of your tires. Things that affect tire wear are your driving style, the vehicles weight distribution, the alignment, and the tire design.

The Mini is extremely nose heavy, so the fronts are going to wear much faster than the rears. Others here have mentioned that the frequency of rotations is important, and this is especially true when on a nose heavy FWD car with performance tires. Ideally, rotate every 3000 miles, but going longer than 6000 miles probably isn't good.

That said, it depends on your preference. It's a simple trade off . . . spend the money or time now to get better tire life, or just buy new tires sooner. There's not much more to it.

Besides rotating and checking pressure, regular alignments go a long way to saving your tires. I have all my cars aligned every year, and I make sure the alignment isn't just "in spec," but that it's spot on the center of the allowable range. OEM alignment specs are pretty wide, to allow for assembly tolerances and for fast cycle time on the assembly line. Even an "in spec" alignment can tear up your tires if it's close to the limits.

The added benefit is that your car will ride, handle, and steer like the factory intended. Most people don't realize that your alignment could be way off even if your car seems to track straight ahead.

 

Oops.

 

thanks to this thread, i suddenly realized that i've had my Neo Gens (assymetrical) for about 4,000kms already with 2 trips to a counter-clockwise track (more like spirited driving ) and i haven't rotated them yet. i'll be rotating them front-back & vice versa for now