Tire rotation myth

I have heard that crossing the tires on your vehicle when rotating can damage the belts in tires. Anything to this?

You are suppose to cross tires to keep the wear even. Two rear move straight to front, two front cross to rear.

I think it was an issue at one time decades ago but with modern belted radials it's not. These days the only reason not to cross them would be due to directional tread patterns. The ultimate fun as a technician is having directional tread patterns and different sized tires from front to rear. If you're tires aren't directional, go ahead and cross them.

I have never crossed tires but have heard you don't want to change the direction of rotation on steel belted radials so they should stay on the same side of the car if you have white lettering shown (usually on one side of the tire). I typically rotate front to back and buy new front tires as front tends to wear a little faster due to the breaking ratio and weight on them.

If your alignment is good, rotating from front to rear should be sufficient. Cross-rotating is usually only needed when you have a tire pull (generally caused by bad alignment). Cross-rotating can sometimes eliminate tire pull.

To answer your question, as others have said, cross-rotating isn't a problem unless you have directional tires.

Crossing still leaves the same ("white lettered") side of the tire exposed.

Crossing them as jz mentioned is beneficial in evening out the effects of cupping from having been on the front.

If crossing directional tires they have to be dismounted and remounted with the opposite side of the tire facing out otherwise you just move them front to rear without a cross.

Mercedes normally wear out tires so quickly that we never even bothered with dismounting directionals, we just moved them front to back.

For non-directional tires, the rears go straight to the front and the fronts cross to the rears just as jz stated. BMW and Ford do the same.


EDIT
Regarding alignment, front tires especially wear unevenly because of suspension geometry dynamics and the wear effect this causes varies from model to model depending on the design. Most Mercedes for example induce more and more negative camber as the steering wheel is turned. Even with a suspension system that kept the tire face flat (theoretically) against the road, sharp turning forces still pull rubber away from the tire unevenly. You can feel this if you run your hand around the outside edge of the tire. Run it in one direction and your hand slides smoothly from one groove the the next, run your hand in the other direction and you may feel a stair step effect where you hand runs into the groove next to it, this is tread cupping which can happen from aggressive driving even with perfect alignment. Beyond suspension design, cupping can be caused by excess negative camber, hard turning, low tire pressure and worn links.

Cross rotation is the recommended in the manual for every vehicle I've owned, on the manufacturer web site of tires I buy and on other sites such as tirerack.com.
Now I have heard that myth and researched it and yes, years ago like in the 50's and 60's there was a problem with doing them that way. My in laws still believe that myth and will tell me I do it wrong every time yet my tires always last longer than theirs and they don't even rotate their own, they have a shop do it so they are not current on the way to do it anyway.

My VW Passat AWD owners manual says to rotate front to back only, do not cross.

Cross rotation applied decades ago when tires were bias ply. You only need to rotate front to back.

LED_Thrift said:

My VW Passat AWD owners manual says to rotate front to back only, do not cross.

Click to expand...

This is a generic prescription to account for different wheel and tire package levels that your model may be offered with. Instead of showing one set of instructions for directional tires and another set of instructions for non-directional tires they just give one rule that covers both. There's nothing wrong with not crossing non-directional tires it's just that they do better if they are. Simply switching them to the rear doesn't do much to get rid of cupping. It's likely that your VW technician would cross them if they're non-directional.

thanks Patriot

Patriot said:

This is a generic prescription to account for different wheel and tire package levels that your model may be offered with. Instead of showing one set of instructions for directional tires and another set of instructions for non-directional tires they just give one rule that covers both. There's nothing wrong with not crossing non-directional tires it's just that they do better if they are. Simply switching them to the rear doesn't do much to get rid of cupping. It's likely that your VW technician would cross them if they're non-directional.

Click to expand...

My wifes vehicle is an Audi (basically the same as a VW). I was also told to only rotate from front to back by the dealership and B&M tire stores. They say the reason is that both manufactures adjust the camber so the tires sit in for handling. Her vehicle does have directional tires.

I'm sure VW offers vehicles that are not adjusted like that but I'm not 100% sure. I was told all the Audi's sedans were like that.

Radial tires should be rotated front to back, not cross.

For those old enough to remember full sized spares and bias belted tires, there was a method that included the spare tire in the rotation.

QtrHorse said:

My wifes vehicle is an Audi (basically the same as a VW). I was also told to only rotate from front to back by the dealership and B&M tire stores. They say the reason is that both manufactures adjust the camber so the tires sit in for handling. Her vehicle does have directional tires.

I'm sure VW offers vehicles that are not adjusted like that but I'm not 100% sure. I was told all the Audi's sedans were like that.

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If her vehicle has directional tires that's probably why they advice front to back. Had it not had directionals, crossing should be fine and is recommended by most dealers and tires stores (see goodyear link). I'm not sure what is meant by their terminology "sit in for handling."

I just checked this on one of our cars (a Subaru Forester) this week, as I replaced the tires 7-8000 miles ago, and need to rotate them soon. I only rotated the last set once in about 25k miles, and they were cupped pretty badly. The owners manual says to move the fronts to the back, and cross the backs onto the front (or vise versa) unless they are directional, then just go front to back and back tires to the front. I've pretty much always just gone front to back/back to front when rotating, as it is much easier to just jack up one side of the car, take the two tires on that side off, and swap them. That's probably what I'll keep doing (just more often on this car).

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Ask a Sales Dealer/Service Dept. of the brand/model of vehicle in question.
Or go by the tire rotation info. printed in the owners manual of the car .

Tire sales stores are not always that reliable or knowledgeable .

Some can't even tell you the proper amount of air pressure to run in a given size tire mounted on a given model vehicle !

NO....... it's not the maximum PSI printed on the sidewall !
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will said:

Radial tires should be rotated front to back, not cross.

For those old enough to remember full sized spares and bias belted tires, there was a method that included the spare tire in the rotation.

Click to expand...

Yep I use that since I have full size spare.

Spare>left rear>left front>right rear>right front>spare.

One other related myth is having an alignment done when having new tires put on. As far as alignments go, it is a crap shoot unless you know the tech is really good and consistent. The given that the car has properly maintained suspension without worn parts to effect alignment. Otherwise the end result is worn tires before their time. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

how do I tell if the tires are directional?