Rotating tyres for even wear.

[Haliotis]

According to my handbook, on a front-wheel drive car, the tyres should be rotated in an X pattern, i.e., front l/h to rear r/h, front r/h to rear l/h, rear l/h to front r/h and rear r/h to front l/h.   But, on a Goodyear.eu website, the rotation for a front-wheel drive car should be:    Front wheels moved to rear and kept on same side,  Rear wheels moved to front and swapped over 

In the past, when rotating my wheels on any car, I have always kept all wheels on the same side.  When renewing tyres, I have always put the new ones on the front.  If the spare was unused, I would put that on the front and the new tyre as the spare.  My reasoning has always been that the front tyres take the most wear because of steering and braking.  I know that there are arguments about having the best tyres on the rear to avoid breakaway skidding.  

But I always renew my tyres when they reach 3mm minimum tread, so I don’t think loss of grip is such an important factor.  My reasons for applying this practice arose many years ago, when I read an article by Continental Tyres, where a graph displayed the drop in performance as a tyre tread wears down, and below 3mm it rose alarmingly steeply.

I don’t know how government set the legal limit of 1.6mm - I have heard that it was set this low to appease motorists - but, at this low tread, in heavy rain a tyre can still aquaplane as it cannot displace the water quickly enough to prevent a bow wave from forming in front of the tyre.

[philip42h]

40 minutes ago, Haliotis said:

According to my handbook, on a front-wheel drive car, the tyres should be rotated in an X pattern, i.e., front l/h to rear r/h, front r/h to rear l/h, rear l/h to front r/h and rear r/h to front l/h.   But, on a Goodyear.eu website, the rotation for a front-wheel drive car should be:    Front wheels moved to rear and kept on same side,  Rear wheels moved to front and swapped over

That all depends on the tyre that is fitted. For standard tyres it doesn't matter which side of the car they are on and a clockwise (or anti-clockwise) rotation is probably best as it gives each tyre an equal time on each corner of the car. But X is perfectly OK too.

Directional tyres show the required direction of wheel rotation - they are 'sided' and must not be swapped over to the wrong side. In this case a front to back swap is all you can do.

With the AWD RAV4 it really doesn't matter much - the wear rate front and rear is very similar, and the car is surprisingly gentle on its tyres. When I ran FWD cars, I'd always put the new ones on the rear and the more worn on the front (to wear them out). That way I would avoid having 'old' tyres on the car. But each to his own - both approaches have merits.

Someone doing high mileages will probably want to get the best value from their tyres and so run them down to around 2mm. Those of us now doing low mileages will start looking at our tyres as time expired once they get to 3mm if not before. Old rubber doesn't grip anywhere near as well as fresh rubber!

[Haliotis]

My decision to go to 3mm was based on the steepness of the graph as it progressed under 3mm.  Considering that 2mm is only 0.4mm above the legal limit, and how quickly a tyre wears down below 3mm, I personally wouldn’t go down to 2mm, even if I did high mileage.   I have deduced that more rapid wear is because, under normal accelerating, braking and cornering, the tread pattern becomes less yielding and more scuffing occurs.

I have never considered directional tyres because one cannot be sure which side it may be necessary to fit the spare in case of a puncture.   Having a bi-directional tyre for the spare would not, in my opinion, be an option because unmatched tyres on the same axle are not permissible.  For this reason, I dismissed the VW Tiguan in favour of the Touran when buying a car.

I agree with the ‘fresh rubber’ observation - when new tyres are fitted, the faster response to steering/braking is very apparent.

[TonyHSD]

Rotating tyres is good idea . Cross pattern on non directional tyres only and on directional front to rear every 5-10k miles.
Another benefit of rotating tyres is the possibility to see inner walls and inspect for dry rot , something that seems to happen in relatively short time in uk. For me personally  no tyres can last me more than 3-4 years. Plenty of tread left but the sides get badlands cracked. 

[Haliotis]

Quote from Tony - “see inner walls and inspect for dry rot”.

The spectre of wooden wheels comes to mind.  For us simple mortals, could you explain how to spot this ‘dry rot’, and what ‘badlands cracked’ actually means?

[Cyker]

He means badly cracked, not badlands cracked; Another victim of auto-correct probably  

But you'll see this as tyres age - The rubber looses its elasticity over time and gets brittle, and you see cracks in the surface start to form. I usually wear them down too quickly for that to be an issue but often see it when I've bought 2nd hand cars.

That said, I was having a puncture repaired yesterday, and another customer was in for some replacement Michelins - Apparently they'd started to crack and were only a few months old! But luckily for them Michelin do evidently honour their warranties for such things.

I tend to change mine at 3mm, as the wet weather performance drops off noticeably as you go past that, but it depends on the time of year and the weather; I've run it down lower in high summer, as I found tyres get weirdly improved grip and handling as they wear down in hot dry weather   

 

[TonyHSD]

😂, sorry my bad again and the iPad choice to write on behalf of me. 
The dry rot happens more often and in very short time more than ever because of the salt during winter months and the rubber compound of latest tyres. Tyre manufacturers since around 10 years ago roughly has started to use organic materials which seems does not resist the salty roads we have. 
The tyres have very short life if you drive regularly on motorways winter times. The scary thing is that if you don’t rotate them or take the wheels off the car almost impossible to spot the issue, even mot tester can missed it. 
Here some fine examples of my tyres. 🫢👌

[Bernard Foy]

Re tyres: Tyres in Ireland will fail our NCT, equivalent of your MOT if they’re over 6yr old no matter what the tread depth.

[Mojo1010]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

He means badly cracked, not badlands cracked; Another victim of auto-correct probably  

But you'll see this as tyres age - The rubber looses its elasticity over time and gets brittle, and you see cracks in the surface start to form. I usually wear them down too quickly for that to be an issue but often see it when I've bought 2nd hand cars.

That said, I was having a puncture repaired yesterday, and another customer was in for some replacement Michelins - Apparently they'd started to crack and were only a few months old! But luckily for them Michelin do evidently honour their warranties for such things.

I tend to change mine at 3mm, as the wet weather performance drops off noticeably as you go past that, but it depends on the time of year and the weather; I've run it down lower in high summer, as I found tyres get weirdly improved grip and handling as they wear down in hot dry weather   

 

Thought he was talking gangland slang for a sec 🙂

Didn't attempt the repair yourself?

Slick tyres best for dry road - F1 and Motorsports comes to mind. I get a bit anxious when it's gets down to 2.5mm, good for dry summer, lower performance in the autumn. 

Done a couple of rotations on the same side, never had 2x hydraulic jacks/axle stands to do cross rotation - that's what I would of done. 

[Stivino]

22 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Tyre manufacturers since around 10 years ago roughly has started to use organic materials

That's interesting.  What organic materials do they use?

[TonyHSD]

1 hour ago, Stivino said:

That's interesting.  What organic materials do they use?

Here we go 

https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a7593/the-science-behind-yokohamas-orange-oil-tires-8146348/#:~:text=The tires can also employ,texture—of the tread surface.

👌

Perhaps not only them. Tyres review from car owners like me and you on YouTube are complaining from the same issue on all tyre brands and particularly high end, Michelin, Goodyear, Continental etc. 

 

[Roy124]

1 hour ago, Stivino said:

That's interesting.  What organic materials do they use?

Rubber?

[TonyHSD]

1 hour ago, Mojo1010 said:

Thought he was talking gangland slang for a sec 🙂

Didn't attempt the repair yourself?

Slick tyres best for dry road - F1 and Motorsports comes to mind. I get a bit anxious when it's gets down to 2.5mm, good for dry summer, lower performance in the autumn. 

Done a couple of rotations on the same side, never had 2x hydraulic jacks/axle stands to do cross rotation - that's what I would of done. 

Hahah, I am waiting now for particular member to get involved in the comments 😂😉👌

Rotating really is must do at least once a year or two. 
These winter tyres were just over 4 years old when I discovered the cracks. The car went through MOT in December and then after new year I thought no rotating this time because this will be their last season. I did check and took pictures of them on 09/03/22 and on the car they looked good even for another winter but I decided to swap to summers and do a brake service all around. When I looked inside walls I was shocked. I had been driving with these tyres every day on motorway at 60+ mph?! 🫢 No good. 

second picture zoom in the red circle to see a nice example of dry rot and cracks in side walls. And those happens on inner walls only.
Impossible to spot when on the car. 

 

[Stivino]

31 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

Rubber?

Apart from that, obviously.

[Stivino]

48 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Here we go 

https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a7593/the-science-behind-yokohamas-orange-oil-tires-8146348/#:~:text=The tires can also employ,texture—of the tread surface.

👌

Perhaps not only them. Tyres review from car owners like me and you on YouTube are complaining from the same issue on all tyre brands and particularly high end, Michelin, Goodyear, Continental etc. 

 

It's hardly "organic materials". 

[Haliotis]

For years I have used Michelin Energy tyres on my cars - OE on both my Tourans, but they were Goodyear OE on my VW Caravelle .  Never saw any cracking of the tyre walls on any of these vehicles.    My 2021 C-HR has Michelin Primacy for OE.

”I’ve run it down lower in high summer, as I found tyres get weirdly improved grip and handling as they wear down in hot dry weather”.      Not surprising - I have been watching British Touring Car Championships on TV and, before the actual start of the race, they do a circuit where they consistently swerve from side-to-side to heat up their tyres to obtain a good grip.

[GBgraham]

So with the CHR have we decided guys. front to back on the same side or crossover?

[philip42h]

1 hour ago, GBgraham said:

So with the CHR have we decided guys. front to back on the same side or crossover?

We noted that it depends on which tyres you have fitted. Front to back is 'safer' since it doesn't matter which type of tyres you have - directional or asymmetric. I suspect that the OEM tyres are typically asymmetric so crossover would be fine.

That probably didn't help much did it? 😉

[Haliotis]

1 hour ago, GBgraham said:

So with the CHR have we decided guys. front to back on the same side or crossover?

Quite honestly, I don’t think it really matters.  Since I do not have a spare wheel, I cannot see myself swapping wheels, as I am not prepared to have jacks under two wheels at the same time.  Being retired and now covering a low annual mileage, I will probably just renew my tyres as necessary without asking the garage to rotate them.   For a long time, my common practice has been to have my tyres changed at our local Formula1 garage, because they have been better priced than the the VW dealership where my cars were serviced, and I would imagine this will apply at the dealership where my C-HR will be serviced.  Leicester Volkswagen only offered a price-match against Kwik-Fit - Don’t yet know if my Toyota dealership does a price match.

[philip42h]

2 hours ago, Haliotis said:

Quite honestly, I don’t think it really matters.

It really does matter, Albert - if your car is fitted with directional tyres you must NOT swap them to the other side.

On the rest, I agree. I'm not going to try to rotate them myself. If the garage does so as part of a standard service, that's fine but I'm not going to ask specially. And as and when the front tyres wear, I'll get a local tyre fitter to swap rear to front and put the new ones on the rear. 

[Haliotis]

Hi Philip.  I had ruled directional tyres out of the equation because I have never had these on any of my cars, thus my comments do not include them in my conversation.  Sorry I hadn’t made that clear.

[GBgraham]

Thanks guys. I would not of ever cross axle tyres and on reading all these thoughts I probably still wouldn't because I am not understanding to logic to the deed, directional or non directional. Surely if the tyres have worn evenly you just need the best tyres on the steering axle and in my/our case it's also the drive axle. I stand to be educated though😜

[Stivino]

Regardless of the driven axle, the best tyres always go on the rear.

[Haliotis]

1 hour ago, Stivino said:

Regardless of the driven axle, the best tyres always go on the rear.

I’m not totally in agreement with this, unless the car is rear-wheel drive - here , a good grip is needed to avoid a breakaway skid.  But this is much less likely on a front-wheel drive car, and here the treads need good grip for directional control and braking.  I have followed this practice for many years, since having front-wheel drive cars, and never found a reason to change my views.

[TonyHSD]

Absolutely Albert👍

Better tyres on the rear axle is totally wrong by all means.
It’s a myth created by auto journalist by appointment of tyre manufacturers and traders to sell more tyres.
Fitting new tyres on the rear axle and switching older to the front results buying a new couple of tyres every year which makes more tyre numbers sold per car in a long term. 
Rotate tyres regularly, replace all 4 corners together when tyres wear off below 4mm or as necessary and check inner walls and water channels for cracks.
Always have the better tyres on the front and don’t listen the authorities and their stupid statements, those who were pushing people to buy diesel cars and now Battery electric and the same organisations will stand against their word in a short time. Some of them can’t even drive cars or know anything about cars. Period.