Tyre Rotation Diagonally or Just Front to Rear - What's your Thoughts??

[rob_macca67]

Guys, I'm curious as to what people do when it comes to rotating their tyres diagonally?

I bought some new A/T's about 20k ago and usually try to rotate every 5k front to back but always on the same side of the vehicle. This time I decided to rotate Front to back & diagonally just to try and keep an even wear across the tyre (even out any feathering on the edge that happens when turning Right/Left that may have happened)
Upon doing this I noticed more tyre noise whereas previously there basically has been none when kept on the same side of the vehicle. It's not a huge increase in noise but it got me thinking as to what others do when rotating tyres... do u always rotate your tyres diagonally or do u keep the tyres on the same side of the vehicle?

Should u get better wear out of your tyres if u rotate them diagonally or doesn't it make a difference?

Just curious as to what others do with tyre rotation & do u just do Front to Back or Diagonally as well?

Have u found one method over the other gives u a better outcome in regards to life out of the tyres? ( ie: Ignoring tyre pressures and alignments, etc)

 

[smitty_r51]

I always cross them, back right to front left, front left to front right, front right to back right.

Spare goes to back right.

 

[phs]

 

[Batts88]

Yeah I always cross them over around 10.000km your car manual usually has a guide or like the above pic. GQ patrols like mine have a tight rear L.S.D. and the left rear wears faster so needs rotating.

 

[rob_macca67]

Do u guys find u get a longer life out of your tyres doing the diagonally swap instead of just front to rear??

Do u find your tyres are slightly more nosier when u do a swap diagonally?

 

[CaptainBanana]

Do u guys find u get a longer life out of your tyres doing the diagonally swap instead of just front to rear??

Do u find your tyres are slightly more nosier when u do a swap diagonally?

I actually use a vernier to measure tread depth and I find in my case the front left tends to wear out more on my work van than the front right. That becomes the spare and then I basically just swap the tires around from highest to lowest wear the other positions.

With my jeep it has a Auto Locker in the rear which means two things - one is they wear significantly quicker than the front and the second thing is they wear evenly so on the Jeep I do swap them front-to-rear in the the same position they are in which keeps the rotation the same as well.

 

[Triton14]

Have u found one method over the other gives u a better outcome in regards to life out of the tyres? ( ie: Ignoring tyre pressures and alignments, etc)

Probably more important to get a frequent decent wheel alignment & balance over rotation & of course check pressures regularly.

Poor alignment & balancing is what produces uneven wear, the fact that you rotate the tyres just means the others will wear uneven.

Otherwise

 

[dabbler]

I have 6 to include in a rotation cycle and have never seen uneven wear comparing side to side. I'm rotating spare to front to back to spare on each side.

Most of my km are added when towing on highways and always heavily loaded. Probably 5% urban, 10 % unsealed, 85% sealed. 90% towing.

Mis-alignment and poor balance quickly chew out tyres unevenly and need to be part of any maintenance routine. I buy tyres from my yre fitter not online and they want your return business so look after you with price on alignment, balances, rim swaps etc. I mostly rotate myself and check other things at the same time.

 

[Colly18]

I actually use a vernier to measure tread depth and I find in my case the front left tends to wear out more on my work than than the front right. That becomes the spare and then I basically just swap the tires around from highest to lowest wear the other positions.............l.

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[shanegtr]

I rotote between 6 tyres, spares cross over sides and go to the front, fronts to rear and rear to spares

 

[Lost1?]

Running 6 tyres. Swap Diagonally. Spares to the front every time. I can usually notice slight scalloping at the front of the tread block around 7500km. If you run aggressive AT or muddies this is easy to see.

 

[Chatty]

I've always done the diagonal swap and left the spare in place, as it's usually on a non-matching rim.
Most of my vehicles seem to wear out rear tyres faster than fronts (most probably because of loads) so I definitely get better mileage out of the set by rotating.
Does the diagonal help? Well, it makes me feel better...

 

[rob_macca67]

I've spoken to some Wheel Aligners about rotate diagonally and they all mentioned that this is a non-issue (use to be a LONG time ago) and if u want to get the most out of your tyres, then rotating diagonally needs to be part of that...

as mentioned before I use to rotate diagonally on our previous prado and if I didn't - I would have been buying new tyres well and truly before I really needed to. I never had an issue, except for the increase in tyre noise...

 

[SirDrinksalott]

I might be off track here but years ago I drove an Audi A4 Avante (I cant believe I admitted that) and it had directional tyres, the dickhead I bought it off also had an directional tyre spare, when needed, it was of course on the wrong side of the car and that made a pretty loud noise until I could replace it. I dont suppose ATs are ever directional are they?

 

[rob_macca67]

I might be off track here but years ago I drove an Audi A4 Avante (I cant believe I admitted that) and it had directional tyres, the dickhead I bought it off also had an directional tyre spare, when needed, it was of course on the wrong side of the car and that made a pretty loud noise until I could replace it. I dont suppose ATs are ever directional are they?

I don't believe directional tyres are the norm as most tyres these days are bi-directional... There are a few M/T's that are directional though..

 

[dabbler]

I don't believe directional tyres are the norm as most tyres these days are bi-directional... There are a few M/T's that are directional though..

Directional tyres are common enough in the marketplace but you rarely see them as a standard factory fit. On road with the right vehicle, they can improve all aspects of driving. I've paid the extra coin a few times in the past.

Directionals are the last thing I'd want on a 4x4 tourer.

Are the directional M/Ts competition tyres ?

 

[boobook]

There seems to be a lot of ways to rotate but there is one variation not mentioned here that appears to be the correct one for 4wd's. Rotation in an X pattern.

FR - RL FL to RR and visa versa, makes sense to me. And how it's done when I get them rotated. I mark the tyres so I know it's right.

Dunno if it's any better or worse than any other way but a few tyre manufacturers to seem recommend that for AWD 4WD.

 

[phs]

Hi Tony

have a look in your Toyota handbook fairly sure it’s similar to the one I posted earlier,

the issue with the one you posted is only 2 tyres every see one side of the front and would think over the life of the tyre it will wear one side more

we had a wheel alignment not long ago all is good but noticed the front left outer edge is looking a little shabby could be anything including alignment but if only 2 tyres stay in that spot it will magnify the Outcome

 

[discomatt]

I always go use the spares in rotation so I dont end up with tires that have 99% tread and 6 years old, mad if you don't IMO, rotate same as post 3 unless I have 6 tires then both spares go on the front, front goes to rear, rear go to spares

 

[Rusty Panels]

Tyre Rotation?
That's easy when going in a forward direction the one's on the passengers side go anti-clockwise and the one's on the drivers side rotate clock-wise!
It not rocket science guys, honestly!