5 Tire Rotation

[mapman97]

I recently bought 5 Bridgestone tires for my 03 Discovery. The original Goodyear spare was manufactured in 02, so I replaced it. I met with the store manager and he mentioned a five tire rotation. He proposed spare to rear right (passenger side), rear right to front right (passenger side), front right to rear left (drivers side), rear left to front left (drivers side), and front left (drivers side) to spare. Does anyone do a five tire rotation anymore? I can't remember ever doing a five tire rotation. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

 

[jafir]

It's a good idea on full time 4wd, in my opinion. That way if you ever have to use the spare for an extended time, you aren't running on a tire that has quite a bit more tread and diameter than the other tires. Having them all the same should put a little less wear on the differentials.... but it's probably not that big of a deal either way.

I planned on doing it with my most recent set of tires, but I still haven't put enough miles on them to do the first rotation.

 

[Keanan]

I do a five tire rotation with my 03 DII. I just rotate everything clockwise one position every 5,000 miles.

Seems to work well. I have close to 40,000 on a set of Mickey Thompson Baja STZ's. Each individual tire has about 30,00 though. So far they are barely 1/3 of the way worn.

 

[listerdiesel]

Never rotated any of our sets of tyres on any of our vehicles over 50 years. It used to be a big thing in the 50's and 60's when everything was RWD and tyres didn't last as well as they do now.

Tyre wear on the Discovery is pretty even, the four tyres wear out at the same time, the spare is covered up and is almost new. Tyres are currently Nexen Roadian, been pretty pleased with them, twice the life of the Pirelli Scorpions we had before, 2 years next month and another years tread on them at least.

The Renault vans wear out their front tyres first being FWD, but again we change them in pairs, Continental Vanco2's. They are 140bhp and 150bhp engines, and we used to tow a lot, but not so much now.

Tyres used to be a big expenditure item, but we are finding that current production is very good on life.

Peter

 

[MNinWI]

I bought my 2003 D2 in 2006 with 32k miles on it. Original Michelin Tires had not been rotated, spare did not have a single mile on it. Approximately every 8k miles I moved the tire with the most tread (the original spare) to the location where the tire with the least tread was, moving the tire with the least tread to the spare carrier. I did that because I could not see wasting all that tread on a perfectly good spare. I now have 70k miles on the truck and am considering new tires, but still have legal amount of tread on each. I extended the life of the tires by about 10k miles by using the spare.

I did not use a set pattern for rotating, but would have if I bought it new. Instead I just used the tread wear gauge to figure out which tire got to take a break each time.

 

[Some Dude]

Gerry, I rotate using the exact pattern the tire shop recommended to you. It has worked well for the last couple sets of tires I have had on the truck. If nothing else, it extends the life of the entire set by 20% since you're adding in the fifth tire.

Now that my D2 has moved from DD to weekend warrior status I don't know if rotating the tires will be worth it. They'll probably wear out due to age before I run the tread down.

 

[Blue]

I rotate my 5 BFG AT's in a clockwise direction as well although I've been lazy and haven't bothered to rotate in about 8,000 miles. Right now I have 48,000 miles on these tires and there is still some good tread left.