How often do you rotate your tires?
 

I took my TSX in for it's first oil change recently, and I was told I should have the tires rotated. I told them i'd wait til 10,000 miles.


What do you guys think? Is it worth it to pay $40 every 5,000 miles to rotate your tires, or not?

i don't think you ahve to rotate them that often... and hell for $40 i'd rather do it myself... 20 minutes of work tops...

Every 10k miles for me.

$40 bucks is too much! The local quick lube place by me does it for 20, but even then I like to do it myself. It such a simple thing to do.

I personally go about every 10k....but I would like to go every 5, I'm just lazy.

Yeah, I hear ya. The only thing is i'd always be afraid I wouldn't do something right, or i'd strip a bolt trying to take one off, or put one back on.


Is is pretty fool proof, or do you need to know a thing or two about cars? Don't they "balance" them or something?

mine rotates automatically when i drive - all four of them.

:ponder: Considering that I've only managed to put about 4500 miles on my car since I put my summer tires on, I'll probably rotate them when I put the summer wheels and tires on the car again next spring.

:tomato:

I rotate it myself every 5000 miles.

Or what you can do, which is what i did, was go to a place like Just Tires, or NTB with about 20 mins til they close and ask them when the next time they can do it is. I got luck and the dude working there was like we'll just throw it up there real fast and at the end, i said how much, and he told me just to tip the 2 guys that did it really fast. So i threw them 5 bucks each and they said to come back whenever i wanted......they really liked my car ;) Said he'd hook me up on tires too......god thing too with winter coming!

it is pretty damn fool proof.... just make sure you keep track of what tire came from where and goes where... especially once you go to directional tires (which you don't have to worry about considering you have OEMs)...

they only balance them when they install the tires on the rim, to rotate all it takes is just swtiching them around... 2 jack stands and a jack and i'm good to go... it's a total of 20 nuts to undo and redo...

not that shabby at all...

you really can't mess it up... just remember to start the nuts by hand when you're putting them back on to make sure you don't cross thread them and you'll be fine

do you swap for winters each season? if so, might as well rotate during each season's swap.

I rotate mine never since the wheels are staggered and have directional tread.

Hrm, what is proper 'rotating' procedure? I'm at nearly 15k and never rotated, I should probably do that!

do you just swap FR-FL & RR-RL, or do you X them up like FR-RL & FL-RR?

it depends if they are a single directional tread or not.

I have heard tire shops say every 5000 miles re-balalnce, rotate & alignment. Which is what I do, since the shop offers the re-balance and rotation for free and I have the lifetime alignment.

A little tire care preventative maintenance

That seems fine for a rotation, but that's a little too frequent for alignment - I usually do it every 15k, but its more dependent on what I feel at the wheel. If everything feels straight and true, I usually put alignment off.

Every second oil change

Do you have any Sears Auto Center nearby? It costs $15 per wheel for balancing-for-life and rotate for free since they have to take the wheels off.

They have no limit (every 5K or months), you can do it as many as you want as long you mention vibration on wheel.

For every 5K, i have oil change at Acura. Balancing and rotation at Sears. I usually take a day off to do all on the same day.

Tires aren't cheap so might as well take care of them, and your car at the same time.

I just noticed you have lifetime alignment, by all means, do it your way. I only do it my way because that would be expensive if I had to shell out $60+ every 5k for an alignment.

Plus I'm still on OEM rubber...the sooner I can make the argument for getting out of them, the better.

:agree:

Lifetime alignment definately worth it :thumbsup:

How much did you pay and where did you get it?

Discount Tire Centers I believe it was like $180. Pays for itself after a few alignments

For OEM Tires, the manual says to do:
FR->RR
RR->FL
FL->RL
RL->FR

Basically the fronts move direclty back, and the rears go to the oposite front.

For directional tires, you rotate fronts to backs directly with no cross.

Not bad, I'll have to look into it when I get new shoes....I think dealers charge 69+ so that is a really good deal.

I'm anal I have rotated them every other oil changes..

I paid $60 bucks for lifetime tire rotation at Discount Tires. I rotate about every 3,000 miles but they recommended every 6,000.

I rotate mine every 2000 miles or 6 fill ups at the gas pump. I am getting 475 miles out of a tank of gas Sweet. Thanks Injen. and the 6mt.