The 5-tire PERFECT rotation schedule for MAX tread life and value.

[VirginiaHeritage]

Also a great pattern for a chinese fire drill at a stoplight. You need one passenger in the cargo area for it to work.

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[timhood]

For those of you who pay for rotations:
How many rotations to add what percentage of tread life?

If you buy...say three sets of tires over the life ownership of your bronco...say 150,000 miles..;
What did you save on tread life?
It surely doesn't equate to money youve spent on rotations because youre buying that third set anyway....

I've not rotated tires since the bias ply days and yet I've never had a wear pattern that shows I've needed a rotation.

Is tire rotation a similar heritage thing like 3,000mile 3month oil changes, or can a measurable savings be proven?
Time has consequence. The additive time in a waiting room due to tire rotation?

Who here has had an actual real tire wear problem that wasn't really caused by a mechanical/non-tire issue?

I am of the mind that if I life-long paid attention to exact proper inflation, rotation, tires vs mileage...that sometime around my 99th birthday and my 25th vehicle I will have saved enough money so my final set of tires will be free due to my lifelong commitment to tire maintenance.

If rotation adds 10% to tread life...you have to buy the tenth set of tires to garner any savings worth saving.
Who here will buy a tenth set of tires for any one vehicle?
'due to my rotation diligence I bought only 9 sets of tires in my lifetime instead of 10 sets of tires'.

But
I amortize everything so my math isn't normal math.

I think rotations really only save you from front-end misalignment completely messing up one or two tires. You catch the misalignment and the rotated tires move off the front wheels. That said, my tires have been regularly rotated because they are included on the oil change/tire rotation/multipoint inspection/fluid top-off deal I get, and on the Bronco, I regularly switch between a street tire and the KO2s for off-road, so they get rotated just as a matter of routine.

The two factors that have cost me the most with tires:One: how we drive (My wife and I have a bit too much of F1-driver habits--she's a go-fast/stop hard driver, and I'm a "let's see what this thing can do in the corners" driver ). The other: mis-alignment, especially when not caught and remedied quickly. I have a performance vehicle with different-sized tires front and rear, so they cannot be rotated (they're directional, too, so they can't even be swapped). On this vehicle, tread wear is even, though quick.

 

[VirginiaHeritage]

I found this pic in a 2024 thread when I was new here and printed it out to keep in my glove box. It gets taped to the dash every time I go in for oil change & rotation:

They have never screwed it up, although on a couple of occasions they remounted the spare crooked rather than left/right symmetrical , even though I tell them to put the valve stem at 6 O’clock. I made them correct it both times because I can’t mount my spare cover when the wheel is tilted and the wheel holes don’t line up right.

 

[Brian_B]

they remounted the spare crooked

I'm trying to visualize this and just can't.

 

[VirginiaHeritage]

I'm trying to visualize this and just can't.

Yeah I wasn’t sure how to write it.

The tire cover has 2 straps, one on each side of the camera post, that passes through the upper and lower wheel opening on each side. If you rotate the tire on the mount in either direction a certain amount, your cover would be seriously tilted or get twisted up, which doesn’t work with text and a flag on it.

This is level/good:

but mounted like this would be no good:

 

[Easy-v]

For those of you who pay for rotations:
How many rotations to add what percentage of tread life?

If you buy...say three sets of tires over the life ownership of your bronco...say 150,000 miles..;
What did you save on tread life?
It surely doesn't equate to money youve spent on rotations because youre buying that third set anyway....

I've not rotated tires since the bias ply days and yet I've never had a wear pattern that shows I've needed a rotation.

Is tire rotation a similar heritage thing like 3,000mile 3month oil changes, or can a measurable savings be proven?
Time has consequence. The additive time in a waiting room due to tire rotation?

Who here has had an actual real tire wear problem that wasn't really caused by a mechanical/non-tire issue?

I am of the mind that if I life-long paid attention to exact proper inflation, rotation, tires vs mileage...that sometime around my 99th birthday and my 25th vehicle I will have saved enough money so my final set of tires will be free due to my lifelong commitment to tire maintenance.

If rotation adds 10% to tread life...you have to buy the tenth set of tires to garner any savings worth saving.
Who here will buy a tenth set of tires for any one vehicle?
'due to my rotation diligence I bought only 9 sets of tires in my lifetime instead of 10 sets of tires'.

But
I amortize everything so my math isn't normal math.

It comes with my oil change and maintenance
Amortize that…

 

[3People1Body]

I know the tread depth from factory... At my rotation interval I measure again... The tire with the most wear goes to the spare and the one with the least goes in its place. I keep going moving the tires by wear. This method requires keeping history of the previous rotation, so calculations are accurate to just the wear from the current rotation period.

 

[ducksface]

It comes with my oil change and maintenance
Amortize that…

I did.
In the very first sentence.

 

[Easy-v]

I did.
In the very first sentence.

You are not calculating the value of not letting your spare dry rot off the back off your Bronco. At 55k on my Goodyears I probably could get 80-90 out of them.

 

[Brian_B]

Yeah I wasn’t sure how to write it.

The tire cover has 2 straps, one on each side of the camera post, that passes through the upper and lower wheel opening on each side. If you rotate the tire on the mount in either direction a certain amount, your cover would be seriously tilted or get twisted up, which doesn’t work with text and a flag on it.

This is level/good:

but mounted like this would be no good:

I see - because of the slits in the rims.

 

[AZ_Liberty]

For those of you who pay for rotations:
How many rotations to add what percentage of tread life?

Why would you pay someone? Discount does it for free. Even on factory rubber.

You may save nothing though. Especially in AZ, I have a hard time wearing out the tread before the rubber starts to degrade due to the sun. I just dropped a bunch of change on new tires for the wife's F-150 with probably 1/2 the tread-wear left on the factory Michelins because they were clearly getting in the the dangerously degrading territory.

 

[majorhavok]

Right rear is your main drive tire. If the fronts are somehow getting more wear than your rear I would think you have an alignment issue.

I use the rotation others have posted, where the spare goes to the right rear.

I am not sure how to respond to this, in my 30'ish years of driving 4x4's the steering tires always wear faster unless you are doing burnouts or something. Front two carry more weight, get "scrubbed" against the ground in turning, weight transfers forward in braking so front tires do 70-80% of braking force which affects the tire life. Lastly, weight and heat are both higher in the front end.

I noticed in another thread you had posted this "right rear" comment and that front's should outlast the back but every comment after was agreeing with the dealerships/tire shops and general experience of drivers that the fronts always wear faster. In researching I also have no idea were you got this right rear wheel only thing. Broncos absolutely have a differential that sends power equally to the rear tires. I hate to just call someone wrong but maybe you could point to a source where you got this info? I certainly can't find anything to make me understand what you meant by that.

 

[majorhavok]

For those of you who pay for rotations:
How many rotations to add what percentage of tread life?

If you buy...say three sets of tires over the life ownership of your bronco...say 150,000 miles..;
What did you save on tread life?
It surely doesn't equate to money youve spent on rotations because youre buying that third set anyway....

I've not rotated tires since the bias ply days and yet I've never had a wear pattern that shows I've needed a rotation.

Is tire rotation a similar heritage thing like 3,000mile 3month oil changes, or can a measurable savings be proven?
Time has consequence. The additive time in a waiting room due to tire rotation?

Who here has had an actual real tire wear problem that wasn't really caused by a mechanical/non-tire issue?

I am of the mind that if I life-long paid attention to exact proper inflation, rotation, tires vs mileage...that sometime around my 99th birthday and my 25th vehicle I will have saved enough money so my final set of tires will be free due to my lifelong commitment to tire maintenance.

If rotation adds 10% to tread life...you have to buy the tenth set of tires to garner any savings worth saving.
Who here will buy a tenth set of tires for any one vehicle?
'due to my rotation diligence I bought only 9 sets of tires in my lifetime instead of 10 sets of tires'.

But
I amortize everything so my math isn't normal math.

I thought your comment was funny btw, but the free rotations kind of render the cost question moot for most if not all I would think. Also, I have absolutely had many instances where I am replacing tires too early due to lack of proper rotations or alignment issues. If you haven't experienced buying new tires 40-50% earlier than you should have had to, count yourself lucky! I wrote this post coming off ANOTHER one of these painful experiences and like another guy said they would have/should have lasted 80k or maybe more. Lots of tire guys rotate their tires all the time to max out life and the convos with guys at Discount and the top-rated alignment shop I just came home from all said 5000 is not often enough, 3000 is the take-away number I got from those in the know. I am also in Arizona but keep my Bronco in the garage so it doesn't get as much sun as others.

 

[majorhavok]

-Mike in AZ

Update: I am updating this to 3000 miles rotations. If you aren't in Arizona you might be fine with longer intervals like 4000/5000.

Also, got the post new-rubber alignment done and it wasn't that far out. I guess those curbs I roll over... err I mean boulders on the trail didn't whack the HOSS as hard as initially thought. Here's the before and after if they mean anything to anyone.

Note: it posted the "after" alignment picture first. The pre-adjust is the bottom picture. I got 3 years out of the first set of tires so lets see how we do with strict alignment schedule, air pressure and the occasional alignment true up. Check back here in 5-7 years.

 

[VirginiaHeritage]

On all of our Chevy/GMC 2500/3500 HD 2WD work trucks, the outside edge of the front right (passenger) tire always wore out way faster than anything else. We always guessed it had something to do with the rear right being the dominant drive wheel and the truck resisting right hand turns a bit more than left, but I dunno. This was a consistent thing across 20+ model years of trucks in our fleet.

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