# Tire Rotation Pattern



## GeorgiaTechFrontier (Apr 17, 2006)

Quick, probably stupid question, but I was curious what pattern people use to rotate their tires. I was always under the impression to use a cross pattern (Rears come Forward, Forwards cross going to the rear). But looking in the manual for the 06 Frontier, it says just bring the Rears forward and the Forwards back, without any crossing. Any input?


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## dvdswanson (Nov 6, 2005)

with bias ply tires cross pattern was needed, with radials it is not necessary to do that, I still cross mine (old fashioned I guess). really the only ones you dont cross are directionals unless you want to pay for the mount and rebalance to go with it. look at the tire wear to see if you have severe feathering on the front or any other abnormal wear patterns, if you have that then keep them on the same side otherwise I'd cross them.


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## avenger (Oct 7, 2005)

i follow the manual and go back to front, same side


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## jerryp58 (Jan 6, 2005)

GeorgiaTechFrontier said:


> Quick, probably stupid question, but I was curious what pattern people use to rotate their tires. I was always under the impression to use a cross pattern (Rears come Forward, Forwards cross going to the rear). But looking in the manual for the 06 Frontier, it says just bring the Rears forward and the Forwards back, without any crossing. Any input?


I've always taken the easy route (on all of my vehicles) and rotated "_Rears forward and the Forwards back, without any crossing_" and I've always been pleased with tire wear.


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## Madmaxfl (Oct 22, 2005)

I drive a bunch of miles on company vehicles for the past 25 years and have used both rotate patterns. In my experience I have found using a cross pattern evens out the wear more. Typically no matter if it is front wheel drive or rear or even all one wheel will be the dominate wheel and experience more wear than the others. If you keep the tires on one side then the dominate wheel sees the same tire every 2nd rotate. with the cross pattern the dominate wheel will see the same tire every 4th rotate.


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## Mylt1 (May 10, 2006)

make sure you dont have directional tires. they are front to back and back to front, no crossing. a lot of car makers are saying not to rotate the tires. the tires wear to where you have the best contact patch. which by the way takes about 3k miles. so right when you get the best contact patch and the best traction you change the tires up. so you actually have less traction when you rotate the tires then you do before you rotate. i dont rotate and have 0 probles. when tires get warn i buy 2 new ones and put the old ones on the rear, new on the front. but its kinda like when to change the oil. people are gonna do what they have been doing for years. right or wrong your never gonna change some peoples minds.


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## Z_Rated (Apr 29, 2006)

Steel belted radials really should not be crossed, going against the used direction of the belts after they have been worn in. Best advice if you are using OEM recommended tires is to follow the manual. If you really feel the need to cross rotate steel belted radials, have them flip rotated (dismounted, flipped and installed on the opposite side of the vehicle) to help even out wear and/or extend tread life. 

Many higher end dealerships use this practice due to staggered wheel and directional setups for performance for a nominal fee. Some even distribute tires and if purchased from them, will include the service as part of their warranty. A local BMW shop here in Az mandates that I bring my Nissan car in every three to five thousand miles or I void my mileage warranty.


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## scuba91ta (Aug 19, 2005)

yeah no crossing with the steel belt radial... seems to me everyone that i know who does it eventually has a problem with a belt shifting...


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## Madmaxfl (Oct 22, 2005)

scuba91ta said:


> yeah no crossing with the steel belt radial... seems to me everyone that i know who does it eventually has a problem with a belt shifting...


I cross them all the time and have never had a belt shift. I currently cross rotate on my 2004 Dodge PU, 1990 Nissan hardbody, 1996 Nissan Sentra and 1996 Dodge Caravan. The 85 300 zx has directional tires so I go front to back.

For those of you into serious racing , like on a track, the traction issue makes sense. for the normal driver it really does not make a difference.


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## ChuckFrontier06 (Jul 25, 2006)

Mylt1 said:


> make sure you dont have directional tires. they are front to back and back to front, no crossing. a lot of car makers are saying not to rotate the tires. the tires wear to where you have the best contact patch. which by the way takes about 3k miles. so right when you get the best contact patch and the best traction you change the tires up. so you actually have less traction when you rotate the tires then you do before you rotate. i dont rotate and have 0 probles. when tires get warn i buy 2 new ones and put the old ones on the rear, new on the front. but its kinda like when to change the oil. people are gonna do what they have been doing for years. right or wrong your never gonna change some peoples minds.


What happens when you can't get the same tread or tire when two of them wear out? It's not a good practice to mix new tires with old because it can negatively affect handling. The problem that you have is not wearing your ties evenly and getting the maximum life from them.


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## Mylt1 (May 10, 2006)

i have never had a problem getting the same tires to replace the 2 warn. if it ever comes up i would just buy all 4. as far as life, my last set of goodyear wranglers lasted over 40K miles and were never rotated. the only problem was i had a little camber problem so the outside of the pass. front tire was worn a little weird but they all still passed Va inspection just before i got rid of her. more inportant than rotating is keeping the car/truck/suv alligned.


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## ChuckFrontier06 (Jul 25, 2006)

Mylt1 said:


> i have never had a problem getting the same tires to replace the 2 warn. if it ever comes up i would just buy all 4. as far as life, my last set of goodyear wranglers lasted over 40K miles and were never rotated. the only problem was i had a little camber problem so the outside of the pass. front tire was worn a little weird but they all still passed Va inspection just before i got rid of her. more inportant than rotating is keeping the car/truck/suv alligned.


*I have a 95 Nissan King Cab that has only had an alignment once in the 9 years I've owned it. The truck never had any alignment wear on the tires. They were rotated every 5000 miles and all had the exact same wear when they were replaced. The same goes for my 02 Maxima. I replaced the OEM tires at 50,000 miles but they still had some usable tread on them. All 4 tires were evenly worn. I just never saw any need to wear out 2 tiires at a time. You can still have less than perfect handling when mixing new tires with old tires.*


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## msubullyfan (Jul 24, 2005)

Madmaxfl said:


> I cross them all the time and have never had a belt shift. I currently cross rotate on my 2004 Dodge PU, 1990 Nissan hardbody, 1996 Nissan Sentra and 1996 Dodge Caravan. The 85 300 zx has directional tires so I go front to back.
> 
> For those of you into serious racing , like on a track, the traction issue makes sense. for the normal driver it really does not make a difference.


Eau contraire... I know of two specific instances where people I know cross-rotated their name-brand steel-belted radial tires and ruined the tires within a few thousand miles.

That may be your experience, but that doesn't make it a good practice.


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## Mylt1 (May 10, 2006)

ChuckFrontier06 said:


> *I have a 95 Nissan King Cab that has only had an alignment once in the 9 years I've owned it. The truck never had any alignment wear on the tires. They were rotated every 5000 miles and all had the exact same wear when they were replaced. The same goes for my 02 Maxima. I replaced the OEM tires at 50,000 miles but they still had some usable tread on them. All 4 tires were evenly worn. I just never saw any need to wear out 2 tiires at a time. You can still have less than perfect handling when mixing new tires with old tires.*


so you had to replace 4 tires at 50k, my gmc tires had 40K on them and all i would have had to replace was 2. the other 2 tires still had at least 10-15k left in them. the fact is when you rotate the tires you are actualy getting worse traction, yes you can make a set last a little longer but with the way i drive and the roads around where i live i will take traction any day over getting a few extra miles out of a set of tires.


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## ChuckFrontier06 (Jul 25, 2006)

Mylt1 said:


> so you had to replace 4 tires at 50k, my gmc tires had 40K on them and all i would have had to replace was 2. the other 2 tires still had at least 10-15k left in them. the fact is when you rotate the tires you are actualy getting worse traction, yes you can make a set last a little longer but with the way i drive and the roads around where i live i will take traction any day over getting a few extra miles out of a set of tires.



*You lost me there with the traction thing. I replaced my tires early because I had some new Michelins I wanted to put on the car. There was no problem with the traction. How does rotating tires affect traction if they all have the same treadwear pattern?*


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## Mylt1 (May 10, 2006)

the contact patch changes as the tire wears. the tire wears to the point it has the most traction. each tire wears differently so no two tires ever wear the same.


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## ChuckFrontier06 (Jul 25, 2006)

Mylt1 said:


> the contact patch changes as the tire wears. the tire wears to the point it has the most traction. each tire wears differently so no two tires ever wear the same.


*Quite untrue. My tires wore the same and all had the same contact patch. I understand that tires have different compounds exposed as the tire wears. Maybe your tires don't wear the same because you don't rotate them. Unless your driving style is aggressive to the point of spinning your tires or taking hard corner they should wear evenly if you maintain the proper tire pressure, wheel alignment and rotate them on a regular basis. I have never in my life worn two tires due to not rotating them and never will.*


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## Mylt1 (May 10, 2006)

then you have magic tires. every tire i have ever seen wears different than every other tire. as i said, some car makers recomend NOT rotating the tires. you yourself said you only had one alignment in 9 years. thats not a very good practice. i get an alignment every year. there is so much that can effect your alignment so i really dont believe you. hell, even hitting a parking block one time can knock your alignment off.


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## ChuckFrontier06 (Jul 25, 2006)

Mylt1 said:


> then you have magic tires. every tire i have ever seen wears different than every other tire. as i said, some car makers recomend NOT rotating the tires. you yourself said you only had one alignment in 9 years. thats not a very good practice. i get an alignment every year. there is so much that can effect your alignment so i really dont believe you. hell, even hitting a parking block one time can knock your alignment off.


*It's fine if you don't believe me. When you have a need for alignment you should get one. I choose not to throw money away by taking my vehicle in for something it doesn't need. If you don't travel on rough roads or hit parking blocks you won't "knock your alignment off." My tires are not magical but they do wear evenly. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. I haven't had any tires that were not allowed to be rotated whether they were directional or non directional. It's just that our driving styles differ greatly as well as our way of doing things.*


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## jerryp58 (Jan 6, 2005)

FWIW, I think there are a lot of variables when it comes to alignment and rotation. Several vehicles back, I drove a Chevette (no alignment adjustments -- well except to pull and flip over a couple of components) and the tire wear was fine. My wife's Grand Am has not had an alignment but has the tires rotated once a year (maybe 6-7k miles) and they're wearing the same (flat across) but the fronts definitely wear faster. My '77 Corvette had a couple of 4-wheel alignments and the rear camber was set so negative (I think that's right -- closer at the top, right?) that the inside tread of the rear tires would wear prematurely. I rotated those just to keep one set from wearing out so quickly and like I say, they definitely didn't wear flat.

Anyway, I think the best bet is to follow the tire/car manufacturer's recommendation, or just keep an eye on the tires and see if there is any unusual wear. If there is, have the suspension checked and if that checks out OK, rotate the tires to keep any one (or two) from wearing out prematurely.

Just my thoughts.


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## ChuckFrontier06 (Jul 25, 2006)

jerryp58 said:


> FWIW, I think there are a lot of variables when it comes to alignment and rotation. Several vehicles back, I drove a Chevette (no alignment adjustments -- well except to pull and flip over a couple of components) and the tire wear was fine. My wife's Grand Am has not had an alignment but has the tires rotated once a year (maybe 6-7k miles) and they're wearing the same (flat across) but the fronts definitely wear faster. My '77 Corvette had a couple of 4-wheel alignments and the rear camber was set so negative (I think that's right -- closer at the top, right?) that the inside tread of the rear tires would wear prematurely. I rotated those just to keep one set from wearing out so quickly and like I say, they definitely didn't wear flat.
> 
> Anyway, I think the best bet is to follow the tire/car manufacturer's recommendation, or just keep an eye on the tires and see if there is any unusual wear. If there is, have the suspension checked and if that checks out OK, rotate the tires to keep any one (or two) from wearing out prematurely.
> 
> Just my thoughts.



*Well stated JerryP.*


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