Tire rotation

Does the Toyota Dealer rotate the tires front to back or X pattern? If you do your own how do you do yours? Thanks

 

More than likely they don’t use the X method and I don’t either.

 

I crisscross (X) front to rear every 3-4000

 

Z pattern here. Great results so far!

I'm currently running two sets of tires, and both are wearing very well.

 

They do front to back. I got them done today. But they will do X also if you want them to.

 

I have a tire shop I used for decades. I cross front to rear and rear straight to front. When oil change time - about 5,000 miles plus or minus. If heading out on road trip, I change oil, rotate and balance if 4,000 or so. I am rolling on AT tires so tread is not too blocky. I always ask for hand torque lug nuts . They let me walk under it on lift to look at brakes and general condition of everything.

 

Rearward cross

 

What's the method with a 5 tire rotation?

 

From 5th Gen owners manual 17in 4 tire rotation vs 20in 5 tire rotation for the Limited and TRD Sport.

 

I think Toyota method of Front to Back works perfectly.

All my tires have equal thread 8/32 left.
Rotated every 6 months with free oil changes.

Except of course the Full size spare tire. 11/32 OEM

Though not sure why they are not following @kmeeg diagram

"20in 5 tire rotation for the Limited and TRD Sport".

Will bring it up at next Oil Change.

 

Front to back always & evry 6k. I don't rotate the spare in, its my spare for a reason.

 

Well, everybody has their own opinions and whats worked for them so i'll add my $0.02

I have tried a few different methods over the years, mostly in my younger years and have since set on a method that i feel works best. I can safely say i have over a million miles under my belt in my life and have been thru quite a few different sets of tires.

Rotating in an X pattern, i notice this requires more balancing to keep the shimmy out of the seats and the steering wheel. I can only speculate that when you drive a vehicle in ---> this direction for a set period of time the belts in the tires also splay in a direction going with the rotation of the tire and when you cross that tire to the opposite side of the vehicle now that tire is spinning in the opposite direction. My hypothesis is that the belts then start "bending" back into that opposite direction which causes the requirement for constant balancing.

I currently do a front to back rotation and with the 4R being really close to 50/50 weight bias you get pretty even wear if you are not hard on the throttle spinning the tires. Because of this, the current set of tires on my daily driver i did not have to balance OR rotate till 40,000 miles. I did my second rotation and balance at 90,000 miles.

I also use this same method on my pull trucks, ram 2500 and ram 3500 pulling race trailers. I use the same tires and get equally impressive wear and trips between rebalancing. Front to back and only front to back. Doing this will allow your spare tire to last you two sets of tires on the road. I dont see any need in swapping in your spare into your rotation, i never have. I normally buy a set of 5 matching tires when i get a vehicle and rotate the 4 on the ground and the spare is there in case you need it. Doing this i have never actually had to replace a spare but by the mileage and time you would have to do it about every second set of good tires or about 200,000 miles'ish. This should be 10+ years for most people and by that time the spare is starting to dry rot. My current set on my daily driver have a little over 120,000 miles and they are about to be 6 years old in August. They have been rebalanced and rotated twice.

 

I rotate front to back. If it's good enough for the Toyota manual, it's good enough for me.

 

It'll depend on the particular tech at the dealer, whatever they were trained to do in previous shops.

Myself? Just front to back as per the manual.

 

Is there a reason why Toyota recommends the front to back pattern? Every tire manufacturer I’ve seen recommends a cross pattern for a part time 4WD vehicle. Unless the tires are directional.

 

This helps sell more tires

I work with UTVs and ATVs and they use a drive belt that is manufactured in a similar manner to how car tires are and there are arrows on the belt and specific instructions to never swap the rotation of the belt after you install it. I can tell you from experience if you switch a belt after running it in one direction all it takes is one high speed romp and it will pop. The only possible explanation is the cords lay back in a specific manner due to the rotation of the belt, and if you switch the belt around then you force those cords to stretch or lay back the opposite direction. I can only speculate the tires are the same, as i have tried two different sets of BFG AT tires with the X pattern and both needed rebalancing about every 10,000 miles. I since switched to front to back only and have MUCH better luck.

 

My tires all change direction every 5K miles, and haven't had any balancing issues related to it.

 

I use the x pattern and rotate the spare in.

 

Same with me. I usually do an X rotation except on directional snow tires. I pretty much never need to get a tire rebalanced.

 

Yeah like i said, everybody has their own way of doing things and sometimes you're right. Then again sometimes you're not aware that you're doing it wrong but if you get the job done and you are happy, who cares what everyone else thinks. I'm not saying anybody has to do things my way cause it doesnt matter a hill of beans if people listen to me. I try to put the best info out i can and if others info and experiences contradict what i say well all i can say is YMMV. Hope you the best big guy, dont mind me.

I bought a tundra a few years ago, its as mint as an old truck could be. 2004 build but looked like a new truck minus the white oxidized paint. An old man owned it and drove it around town never leaving his relatively small town. It was 16 years old when i got it and it had 122,000 miles, it had the original windshield with zero rock pecks, the original paint all the way around and only had 2 or 3 rock chips on the front end. When you live in a small town and drive 40-50 on normal town roads you dont feel imperfections in tires like people who live on the highway. Its no real stretch for me to put 30,000 miles on a vehicle a year, i spend a lot of time on the interstate running back and forth and spending an hour on the highway at highway speeds you really get annoyed with a shimmy from wheels not being balanced right. Part of it could be bad tires, part of it could be pot holes blowing the belts in the sidewall out, part of it could be just how things work but i dont think any tire will stay balanced its entire life. WELL.... Maybe a set of Mickey Thompson ET streets cause they dont last long enough for you to rebalance them. I used to run BFG tires, i've had a half dozen sets of ATs and one set of MTs and i never had great luck with keeping any of them balanced regardless of how they were balanced or how i drove or how i rotated them. I've had 7 sets of the tires i run now and i have had excellent success with them across all of the vehicles i have had them on with the current balancing and rotating procedures i use. I'm not saying its magic or anything its just that i am currently having great success with it.

 

How often do you rotate yours?

I wonder if it could be different with a longer rotation interval, as the belts might develop more of an attitude by spinning in the same direction for 10 or 20K miles, as opposed to 5K?

I wasn't trying to say that anyone is right or wrong. Just saying that I haven't had any balancing issues.

Edit: If you're getting good wear out of your tires, you're doing it right.

 

I actually did my first tire rotation yesterday after 21k miles since I bought the Michelins new.
I drove at highway speeds after getting the car and everything seemed okay. I did ensure that my road force numbers were below 20.
But you are correct, I was skeptical that if I did a rotation after such a long interval I might get a shimmy. I want these tires to last 70k miles like the brochure said.

 

I drive mostly highway. I can’t remember the last time I got a tire rebalanced.

 

Did you get even wear - Front and Rear?
PSI Summertime ?
PSI Wintertime ?

 

Almost even wear.
Running 32 summer, 34 winter.
Michelin Defender LT2.
I'll do the next rotation in about 20k miles.

 

I criss-cross rotate every other one, but with offroad tires. They get chopped and and it will even the high spots out. Usually you can hear it or run palm across tire tred face and check for smooth surface. You get what you pay for. High mileage tires wear along time, but less traction and grip. Middle of road performance for everything is usually better grip, performance but less mileage. I used to drive 100+ miles every day and buying tires every 18 months or so you learn what you like every couple of years. I want wet weather handling most. I don't want to slow down. Michelin cross terrain or LTX got me the best gas mileage with lighter weight. I always thought they got slick in the rain after 20k or so.

 

20K is a lot of mikes between rotations. You should try to do it at about half that.

 

You guys are rotating tires?....

 

You have tires?

 

Gonna go check long Friday Morning...