Tire rotation question

[vasonline]

Hi All,

I have on my Yaris two new Tires, and two (leftover) original Tires.

How should I rotate the tires after a year?
Cuurently I have the old tires on the front, in order to wear them out faster,
and because I read oversteer is more dangerous. So the new tires are on the back.

To show It, I made a picture:

Number 1 is the normal tire rotation

Should I do 1, 2 or 3? (or do nothing)



Greetings

[kevinj93]

I will be interested to see if anyone has a definitive reply with an explanation why.

The manual for the Yaris shows recommends rotation as in drawing number 1. Most other cars I have owned recommend just swapping front to back, like diagram 2.

I owned a Jaguar many years ago, and te manual recommended that tyres should never be rotated. It even went so far as to state at wheels and tyres should be marked if being removed, so they could be put back on in the same position on the axle. their logic was that the tyre wears to compensate for any small irregularities in its rotation when first installed, and changing its position would lead to another period of rapid wear, during which grip and handling would suffer.

Front wheel drive cars are well known for wearing out the front tyres a lot faster that the rear tyres, so the argument for rotating the tyres is to even out the wear, so tyres get replaced as a set of four. This leads to having a better balance of front/rear grip.

Our local motoring organisation recommends that if you only replace 2 tyres, they should go on the driving wheels (front wheels on fwd, rear wheels on rwd).

[beaker]

The most common practice I see today is rotate front to back/back to front on the same side. In other words, the left front would go to the left rear, right front goes to right rear, and of course the rears go to the front on their respective sides. This is done mostly because of directional tread patterns found on many tires today. Call it lazyness or trying to get the job done faster, are the only reasons I can see to do it that way unless the tires are directional. That being said, I rotated the OEM crap Goodyear tires on my wife's Scion XB like that, and got 70K out of them.

Many tires today are made with asymmetric tread patterns to increase tread life and performance(grip), and to reduce road noise for comfort. On asymmetric tread patterns, the tire manufactures actually use different compounds and tread patterns on the outside tread of the tire than the inside tread to maximize some the things mentioned above. The Nitto Neogen is one such example.

You should always follow the manufactures suggestion on rotational direction of the tire, and mount it on the car so that they rotate in the direction they were designed to. The tire will either have arrows on the sidewall indicating which direction the tire should rotate, which is common for directional tread tires, or will have labeled on the sidewall either inside or outside indicating which way the tire should be positioned when mounted. You never want to see a asymmetric tire mounted on a car with the label on the sidewall "inside" showing to the outside of the car, or the arrows on the sidewall pointing to the rear of the car for directional tires. When this happens, the tire will wear out prematurely, and be very noisy and not perform well.

As for non directional pattern tires, rotate front to back in a cross pattern, and back to front by bringing them forward on the same side. Or follow your example in the first diagram. Either way will give you the same results. For asymmetric type tires, front to back, back to front or the cross pattern will work, as the "outside" label will be oriented correctly already if they were mounted on the rims correctly.

All types of tires should be rotated every three to five thousand miles. Just do it every time you change your oil, and always keep them inflated to the proper pressure. This is key to get the most life out of the tires as possible. Under or over inflated tires will wear prematurely. Under inflated tires will wear the outside tread faster, over inflated tire will wear the middle of the tire faster. Follow the car manufactures recommended inflation amount usually found on the ID sticker on the drivers side door frame, not the maximum inflation amount found on the tire, unless your overloading the car. Alignment is also key to long life of the tire. Nothing will wear out a tire faster than a misaligned car.

As a side note, after the big Firestone/Ford Explorer debacle a few years ago, when the rear tires were exploding causing rollover wrecks, the aftermarket tire industry started recommending that when only two new tire were being put on a car, they should be put on the rear axle, regardless of front or rear drive. So when you go to a tire store to buy just two tires, more than likely, that's what you will be told, put them on the rear. Doesn't make much sense to me, because your gonna rotate them to the front on your next oil change/tire rotation. Seems like a feeble attempt of CYA right after the Explorer problem, that kinda just stuck as a rule in the tire industry.

Then there are staggered tire set ups. This is when the front tires are a different size than the rear, with the rear being larger. Not much can be done to rotate, and most tire manufactures will only guarantee half the stated tire mileage warranty.

[CoryM]

Long story short, the car industry has decided that understeer is safer than oversteer. The reasoning being that if you are understeering, typically the correct action is to reduce throttle (which is most people's natural reaction when traction is lost). So because of that, pretty well all recommendations are to do what will cause understeer. In this case, that means keeping the old tires on front because they (presumably) have less traction.

Myself, I always want the better tires up front. Braking and steering are important, and the front does most/all of that. FWDs, if you oversteer you want to have the front traction to accelerate out of it. RWDs if you oversteer, well.... it's your own fault for using too much throttle. You have control over the throttle, you do not have control over when you need to emergency brake/steer. I'd rather be able to stop faster than accelerate faster.

In terms of tire wear, you want the best shoulders to the front as the steering wears them faster (FWD or RWD). Especially on a Yaris.

Cheers.

[vasonline]

Hi kevinj93, beaker and CoryM

Thank you all for your detailled reply!

Greetings

[kimona]

In your case, I wouldn't rotate now. When you are ready to replace the front tyres, simply move the rear tyres to the front and put new rubber on the rear.

* For safety, I would always install the best rubber at the back... regardless which axle is driving the car.

[vasonline]

Originally Posted by kimona

In your case, I wouldn't rotate now. When you are ready to replace the front tyres, simply move the rear tyres to the front and put new rubber on the rear.

* For safety, I would always install the best rubber at the back... regardless which axle is driving the car.

Hi,
Thanks for the reply!

That is a bit like CoryM said:

Long story short, the car industry has decided that understeer is safer than oversteer.

Greetings