rotating tires in the rav

[nerdygirl]

i was wondering if any of you out there who read this forum are "into" rotating your tyres?

i read about it on the kluger forum a while back, and decided i would get them rotated every 10,000 km.

how they actually rotate them when you ask your toyota dealer to rotate them is apparently a mysterious question.

after i'd paid to have it done (rotate and balance, $45, motorama), the guy who i paid told me they rotated them clockwise, including of course the spare on the back.

when i got home i checked it out and noticed something interesting. well actually more disappointing than interesting. my left front tyre which has a slight scrape on the rim from one time when i pulled in too close to the curb, and it was in exactly the same spot. so i rang them to ask what had happened. you see as far as i can gather, in order for rotating your tyres to be useful, you have to do it in a consistent way, which means you have to know how it was done.

the guy i spoke to made up some mysterious story about how they might have been rotated in some mysterious way which didn't make any sense to me. but i know too that the front right one wasn't moved either because of its level of dirt. what i mean here is that i hadn't cleaned my car for a month or so and the rear alloys were dirtier than the front ones.

in fact, i am pretty sure that all they did was swap the spare at the back with the left side rear tyre.

so i am wondering if anyone else has any tyre rotation stories to tell.

nerdy.

[RAV4White]

If I recall the RAV driver's manual explains the fashion by which the tyres should be rotated.

I religiously adhere to rotating tyres, and have done this as part of the first 10,000km service - front wheels to rear, rear wheel to front. The car was pulling slightly to the left when I first collected it, it now tracks fine though.

Reaching 20,000km in about a month or two and will certainly rotate the tyres then.

[achk]

I always have my tyres rotated every 10-15,000km (and balanced at the same time). However, I wouldn't trust a dealer to do it. In fact, I wouldn't trust the dealer to do anything these days. They don't seem to know anything beyond the routine servicing on what are near-new cars anyway (and over-charging while doing so). You'll probably get the job done properly and cheaply at your local tyre store.

I usually don't involve the spare when I rotate my tyres, because:

1. different level of tear and wear compared to tyres that you'd have driven on for at leasr 10,000km more. This will lead to a left-right imbalance on whichever axle your brand new spare is put on.

2. Overtime, you may have a different brand or model of new tyres put on your car. (Tyre models get updated and superseded) Unless, you change all 5 tyres which people rarely do, you may have a different tyre for your spare. In that case, the spare is really a temporary solution when you have a flat.

Some car manufacturer still recommends rotating the spare in their handbook. I can vaguely remember tyre rotation being described in the RAV4 handbook. But generally, I was taught that when rotating tyres:

Front left to Rear left

Front right to Rear right

Rear Right to Front Left

Rear Left to Front Right

That way, over time, each tyres will be rotated to the four corners, and would have spent equal times on the front and rear axles, and the same pair of tyes would be used on the same axle all the time (for those who have different brand/model of tyres front/rear).

One thing to note though, if you have uni-directional tyres (which the RAV doesn't ex-factory), you should just rotate the tyres front to rear and vice-versa on the same side only. (Unless you want to take the tyres out of the rim and change them around everytime you rotate)

Hope this helps and not too confusing.

[DJKOR]

achk pretty much summed it up there. If you are unaware whether your tires are directional or not, the easiest way to rotate is to put the fronts to the rear and vice versa, keeping them on the same side of the car. I reckon that it is better to leave the spare out of the rotation only because it can get annoying keeping track of all the different tire wear.

Front wheel drives experience a lot more wear on the front tires, so rotation at regular intervals is a good idea. Your Rav is only part-time 4WD right? In that case, under a lot of normal driving, your front tires would experience more wear. If when you take it in for a service and they say they rotate the wheels/tires, you can usually tell it's been done as the tires with more meat on them will be at the front.

[cuppas]

some people like to rotate them involving the spare, but at my work we always exchange front and rear, no diagonals or whatever

...you dont need it done every 10,000km, really

just when tread difference between the fronts and rears gets noticeable, or you start to get vibrations through the steering wheel...

[Quadrocket]

I agree with pretty much all that's been posted previously -

1) Leave the spare out of the rotations. Means you will only have to get 4 new tyres, not 5 - saves money! BUT if you change your tyre size to wider or do a +1 or other tyre upgrade be aware that you'll have to take it easy with the spare on because of the different handling characteristics.

2) Unidirectional tyres like Maxxis MA-S1 etc - keep on same side LR to LF, LF to LR, etc

3) Rotate every 10,000 km and balance tyres at same time.

My personal preference is to rotate as below -

LR to LF

RR to RF

LF to RR

RF to LR

I have been told by a tyre dealer that radial tyres get used to rotating in one direction and take 50km or so for the plies to settle in. Rotating as above, the more important fronts are already settled in, and the rears which are less critical to steering and braking can sort themselves out as you drive.

My 10c worth.