View Full Version : Tire rotation pattern
kpriv
09-07-2017, 03:53 PM
Dumb question alert -- what do you folks do for your tire rotation pattern? Just switch front to back or also cross (ie, rear tires move forward on the same side and fronts go to opposite side rear). Dr. Google tells me the latter is best for 4wd/awd vehicles, tire shop says otherwise. My guess was tire shop is just lazy/uninformed, but figured I'd check with more knowledgeable people on here before stating anything definitive.
thanks
Kevin1
09-07-2017, 04:25 PM
What does your owners manual say?
SleekS7
09-07-2017, 04:28 PM
You can only coss rotate if you don't have unidirectional(designed to rotate one direction only) tires. Most summer and high performance tires are unidirectional and must be rotated on the same side. But you can also pay extra for a shop to unmount/remount tires to switch which side of your tires face out on unidirectional tires, useful if you know you have minor camber wear and want to even it out, I do this on my other car.
kpriv
09-07-2017, 04:35 PM
You can only coss rotate if you don't have unidirectional(designed to rotate one direction only) tires. Most summer and high performance tires are unidirectional and must be rotated on the same side. But you can also pay extra for a shop to unmount/remount tires to switch which side of your tires face out on unidirectional tires, useful if you know you have minor camber wear and want to even it out, I do this on my other car.
Thanks, that is helpful. For some reason I didnt think the tires were unidirectional but that makes sense. Like I said -- dumb question alert! From the couple times I've jacked up the car recently to do exhaust work it does appear I'm getting minor uneven camber wear, but I guess I'll just let it go and benefit for the 30k tread warranty if they need to be replaced sooner...
Appreciate the quick response.
The move has been away from unidirectional summer tires and toward asymmetric tires which you can and perhaps should cross-rotate. If you look on tirerack all available summer tires for the S7 are asymmetric, only the winter tires are unidirectional.
Cross-pattern rotation can allow for a more even wear and reduced noise over the lifetime of the tires. I think many places just tell people front to back as it avoids the issue IF by chance they are using unidirectional tires.
SleekS7
09-07-2017, 07:06 PM
The move has been away from unidirectional summer tires and toward asymmetric tires which you can and perhaps should cross-rotate. If you look on tirerack all available summer tires for the S7 are asymmetric, only the winter tires are unidirectional.
Cross-pattern rotation can allow for a more even wear and reduced noise over the lifetime of the tires. I think many places just tell people front to back as it avoids the issue IF by chance they are using unidirectional tires.
Good point on the asymmetric tires! Just checked my S7 and the P Zeros have the OUTSIDE stamp but no directional arrow. Also checked the summer "max performance" tires on my other car and they have the directional arrow and no OUTSIDE stamp.
Take away is best to check what kind of tires you have if you don't trust your shop to do it right :)
kpriv
09-08-2017, 11:07 AM
I called michelin (I have ps4s tires). They didn't say much in terms of a recommendation. Just that as long as the tires do not say "unidirectional" feel free to cross rotate or just go front to rear. So pretty much up to the user. I'm going to cross-rotate as that makes sense to me trying to achieve an even wear pattern on all 4 tires...