2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission tire rotation

[dblake]

Getting ready to rotate my tires and I was wondering if anybody's got some ideas on how best to rotate them,including putting the spare in the loop. Thanx!

 

[TowPro]

don't know if you have 4 or 6 tires. 2wd or 4wd. but if there Badyears I would rotate them out into the trash.

:--)



My gole was to keep the spare new, and I would only have to buy 3 new tires when the stock ones were shot, but when I got tired of the bubbles in the sidewalls of the badyears I put Cooper SRM-II's on and have not had a problem since.



I rotate mine in an X patterin.

 

[Pit Bull]

Look in your owners manual. Based on your style truck it explains how and how often. You need to add a sig to your information so we know what truck you have

 

[dblake]

I've got the michelin ltx a/s

 

[Big_Daddy_T]

I am curious too. I have the 3/4 ton 4x4. I dont have a manual. TIA

 

[Pit Bull]

Bring the fronts straight back and X the rears to the front, every 4-5K miles.

 

[zimman20]

What's strange is I had a hard time finding the rotation pattern in the OEM (120. 00) manual but found it immediately in the owner's manual that came with the vehicle!



For the dually it's like this:



Tires get rotated always staying on the same side of the truck.



The fronts get rotated to the rear outside wheel; the rear outside wheel gets rotated to the rear inside, the rear inside gets rotated to the front. Same on both sides.





zman

 

[RThompson]

Pit Bull Bring the fronts straight back and X the rears to the front, every 4-5K miles.



When radials first came out they recommended keeping them turning the same direction. Apparently this was to keep belt seperation to a minium. With alloy wheels it not really very feasible to put the spare on the ground when time comes to 'rotate'.

Back to front and vise versa always worked for me.

Maybe a tire expert will jump in here. .

 

[Dennis Garrett]

Evey time I've ever X'd tires on a rotation, I eventually lost one due to belts or plys or whatever, slipping. I only rotate same side, front to rear now.

 

[zimman20]

EVERY 4-5K MILES?!?!



You need a hobby, man! Who's got that kind of time?

 

[BigMike]

My manual says to criss cross. I did that recently and then had a very pronounced pull to the left. I switched the two front tires and it solved my problem. Which means, probably front to back rotation is the right way to go.

 

[zimman20]

Yeah, for the four-wheeler maybe. For the dually, the manual states the way I explained it above.



In case anyone was getting confused!

 

[MJawsman]

Cross rotating = ply separated tires is one of the biggest myths in automotive. I think it was started back in the early 70's when radial tires became standard equipment on many cars. Radial technology had been around for a while, but the manufacturing process was less than perfect. So tire manufacturers-not wanting to do warranty work on a separated tire-blamed cross rotation as the culprit. The only tires that shouldn't be cross rotated are those with a directional tread patern-none of which come stock on our trucks.



If your tire separates it's for some other reason, like maybe that plug you had put in or a poor patch job done while you're on the road. But that's a whole other can of worms.

 

[TomGolden]

I had been doing axactly as the owners manual explains, but a few months ago I bought another of the aluminum alloy wheels, and so now I also rotate my spare into the driving mix so all 5 will wear as evenly as possible. So what I now do is put the current spare on the left rear, then rotate all the other tires in a clockwise pattern. So the tire that was on my right rear becomes the new spare.



Tom

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Tom - keep in mind that if you have a limited slip rear end that you are putting extra wear on the LSD clutches by doing that. If you have different sized tires left to right on the rear then one is always turning faster than the other and the clutches have to slip to allow that. For that reason I will only replace tires in pairs. Recently I had a badly flat spotted tire that they replaced under warranty, I paid for a 2nd new tire so they'd be turning at the same rate (thus replacing a perfectly good tire with about half it's tread used up). If you don't have LSD then nevermind.

 

[Pit Bull]

Originally posted by RThompson

Pit Bull Bring the fronts straight back and X the rears to the front, every 4-5K miles.



Back to front and vise versa always worked for me.

Maybe a tire expert will jump in here. .

X them all you want it will not hurt the tire and it will help them wear evenly But do what you want to. I have a 3500 4x4 and it would be real hard not to run them both directions as the manual recommends :-{}

 

[JohnMcIntyre]

Musical chairs.....



According to my DC 3500 Factory manual.....



Front left -> Rear Left outside -> rear left inside -> front left

and similar arrangement for the right hand side... ... .



For those without training wheels, I will leave that for you to make the intellectual leap...



So far I have not rotated my spare tire into the mix - these Rickson 19. 5s look almost brand new with more than 25k miles on each of them. My own 0. 02 cents. truck bio in profile below left

 

[zimman20]

JMc- Same thing I said, only I had to read it four times to figure out you were saying the same thing I said!

 

[Pit Bull]

Re: Musical chairs.....

Originally posted by JohnMcIntyre



According to my DC 3500 Factory manual.....



Front left -> Rear Left outside -> rear left inside -> front left

and similar arrangement for the right hand side... ... .



For those without training wheels, I will leave that for you to make the intellectual leap...

Now I know everyone realizes that with a 3500 that the front wheel when it is rotated to the outside rear position, it is then running the opposite direction that it did when it was on the front. Which does the same thing as having a truck with 4 wheels and X'ing the rears to the front. I hope this is not getting to confusing. Bottom line it is OK to rotate side to side.

 

[redram]

How do you flat spot one rear tire?



Ok, what situation allowed one tire to lock and the other not?