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SVT: tire rotation pattern

G

gliderjoe

New CEG'er
Joined
Mar 24, 2004
Messages
22
Location
San Francisco
I took my SVT in for a tire rotation and told them to do the front -> back cross pattern as the manual states, but the guy at the garage said that they do all tire rotations now simply front -> back without crossing. This is because it is believed that cross pattern rotation can cause tires to fail if the tires have not been rotated in a long time and/or if the front/rear are out of alignment. Can anyone confirm this? Does the cross pattern really matter?
 
The only reason that I know of for not crossing sides is if you have a uni-directional pattern. Those are front to rear.

If it is an assymetrical pattern on the tire, then they can be rotated side to side.
 
as I know it it only has to do with directional tires. since the are directions you can't swap them side to side as then the tire would rotate in teh wrong direction.

other then that its easier to just do front to back ...
 
If you look in a "Tire Guide" it states that both ways of doing it are correct. But, the level of effectiveness is quite different. On any two-wheel drive vehicle it is best to cross the tires to the drive axle. This way each tires get a chance on all points of the vehicle encouraging even tire wear.

While both are correct one is still better overall. The guy was just lazy.
 
actually a good alignment is the best bet for even tire wear. I have directional all seasons on my Mystique and they have worn perfectly even. The summer performance tires on my SeVT also have worn perfectly even. They are rotated when the go back on the cars after the winter.
 
True, if your alignment is jacked it won't matter how you rotate. That's not to say that if your alignment is good you don't need to rotate your tires. I just know that with more weight on the front of any vehicle not rotating will cause premature, feathered, or un-even tire wear.

Here is a link that I have found with explanation and diagrams. http://www.wholesaletire.org/tirerotation.html
 
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The whole thing about not cross rotating radial tires is because when radial technology was new, the tire often did fail if crossed. It was essential then, but pretty much a thing of the past now. Unidirectional tires and sometimes asymmetrical tires still can't be rotated though without dismounting them.

Many tire professionals still will not cross radial tires because of the past history. Personally, I don't cross radial tires unless there is a compelling reason, such as customer insistence, trying to compensate for unusual tire wear, or trying to eliminate a tire pull.
 
If you have directionals, and do the criss-cross pattern, you'll notice. I had a shop do this once, and couldn't tell just by looking at the car. But it shook horribly on the highway, felt like the car was falling apart.
 
It don't really matter how you rotate them... Unless they are directional like others have said... I work at a discount tire and all we do is straight rotations(front to back, back to front).. Unless the customer wants it done differently... It's also faster just doing a straight roto... As also said before, not rotating them is bad... For instance, the rear wheels on a FWD are just there to hold the car, they serve no other real reason. The tires can get choppy and have secondary wear(inside and/or outside). So that is why you would want to rotate them on a regular schedule.. Somewhere between every 6k-8k miles...
 
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